Heart Breaker: Heartbreaker series: 1

Chapter two

I haven’t moved for over an hour. I keep wiping the tears, but they keep coming. No one has noticed me, or asked what’s wrong. The unfinished coffee in my cup is stone cold, I should leave.

I hug my arms around my waist. A weak effort to hold myself together. It comforts me for a matter of moments, but then it reminds me they aren’t the arms I need.

 I need his arms. Arms that will never hold me. Not now.

The finality of that, nearly undoes my resolve again. I lean over to pick up my purse from the ground. The weight of my chest crushes down on my knees. I want to stay in this position. To feel that weight.

That’s when I feel the weight lighten. I feel a hand on my shoulder and a sweet voice greets my ears. “Well hello, there. Long time no see.”

“Gerry.” I look up into the eyes of my old friend. She hasn’t changed. Still has the same pink spiked hair, the black eye liner making her big brown eyes smoky and warm.  Her tiny frame draped in layers of colorful shirts. She never wears just one of anything, but she’s the only person I know who can.

She gives me a big hug and  drags a chair over to sit at the table, tucking her black booted feet underneath. Then she stares at me and waits. I know why she does this. She knows me so well. She knows I can’t stand the silence. She knows I’ll crack and speak first.

I do.

“How have you been?”

“Good. And you?”

I bite my lip. Where to start. I’m not good. But I’m not good for so many reasons.

She waits again.

I stir the dregs in my coffee cup with my spoon. “I’m okay.”

“Uh-huh.”

I wish she’d say something else. Anything else, to kill this silence. She won’t give in though. She’ll wait it out. She has the patience of a saint.

I bite my lip again and take off my shades.

 She gives a small gasp.“You look like shit.”

I manage a small smile. “Gee, thanks.”

She shakes her head. “What happened?”

I haven’t spoken to her in over a year. The first year I sent the occasional email to let her know I was still alive. Then I stopped. Stopped, because I couldn’t deal.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Oh, I think I do.”

And there it is: my in. My in to tell her all the black dark details of my life for the past two years.

A life I’d much rather forget.

A cellphone rings. It’s mine.

Gerry’s been looking at me with those big bug eyes, freaking me out. She wants to know. And she wants to know bad. I’ve seen that look before. It’s the look she gave me when I told her I was leaving.

Leaving her, leaving here, and leaving him.

I reach down and pull out my iphone. The only thing of value that I own, and the lifeline to my savior.

I see the familiar grin of his photo as it shows up on my screen, and I can’t help but smile. Gerry narrows her eyes and I give a small shrug.  She doesn’t flinch just keeps watching. I make sure not to show her his picture or I'm betting she’ll start scowling.

He’s beautiful. There’s no other word to describe Bennett. Beautiful, in a: I want to preserve your look kind of way. Preserve it for future reference so the human race can strive for perfection. I always tell him that’s what he’s carved from—perfection. Perfect white teeth, perfect complexion, perfect blue eyes, perfect black hair and of course perfect physique—buffed and shaped like an athlete. Which is ironic, because he never makes an effort to work out.