Please, Remember Me

Chapter Twenty-Five - Leaning on You

The taxi idled on the curb at Adelina Grove. The driver thankfully hadn't asked any questions about the state of me, the scene he witnessed or the fact that a group of people had been left standing on the street in Camden with obvious concern for me.

I paid him and climbed out, ignored his worried look and closed the door.

My face was killing me, the throbbing escalating by the minute and by now I was dead certain my eye was going to be black in an hour or two. It had swollen almost completely shut and I cursed that fact, yet not really feeling it in my soul.

No, my mind was too focused on the impossibility of what had just happened.

The confrontation between Kieran and Adam alone was enough to send me reeling, but the fact that he was here, was tearing me apart again. I'd been close enough to okay to hate that he was here. Because with him here I landed back on square one and had to climb back up without any help.

And why, oh fucking why was he here?

It didn't make any sense at all. It was completely mad to me because we were so over. It had been too long, the distance of days too vast, he'd broken me too much and so many terribly ugly emotions had grown and blossomed inside me that I knew I'd never get rid of them.

So why?

And what about his fiancée? What about the fact that he was possibly already fucking married? Maybe he even had a baby on the way like Lizzie suggested all those nights ago? What about the fact that he had once been too busy to even entertain the idea of even talking to me on the phone? What about the fact that while losing him I'd lost Kyle and Angie, Tommy and Liv, Marie and Cam, Conner? All of them were gone, too, and his reappearance cut so deep I didn't know how I was still standing.

It was so callous of him. So ruthless to come here now.

He must have known what it would do to me because if anything I'd always been vocal about my love for him and his family once it was finally made clear to me.

My mind was so filled with thoughts of wooden headboards, sleeping by a lake, claw footed tubs, days' worth of passion and orgasms, barbeques with bitchy girls and wonderful people I could barely breathe.

It was like cutting up an artery that had already been damaged but had healed enough to close and now I was bleeding again and there just wasn't enough blood left in me to survive this.

And yet, fucking yet, I absolutely loved that I got to see him again, that I'd felt his hands on me and smelled his unique scent. That his massively strong body had been in close proximity to mine and that rumble had graced my eardrums.

Because I was stupid.

I was dumb enough to still love him.

Because I did and a love like mine didn't go away with whatever it was that life threw at it, or even what he threw at it. It was weak of me to feel that way. I wished so badly that I could be the kind of girl who brushed herself off, stood straight and forged on. The kind of girl I was supposed to be, had always been before all this. But I wasn't...

I grabbed a pack of frozen peas from the very back of my freezer, a little surprised they were even in there, and walked into my bedroom after making it annoyingly clear to myself that my door was locked.

I threw my purse somewhere, tossed my jacket after it and carefully laid down on my bed. I stared at my ceiling and cursed the fact that there was too much going on again, too many things that hurt and cut and devastated and I was tired of it.