Don't Let Me Fall Again

Chapter Thirteen - Invite Me To Dinner

‘Laura, please, I’m so sorry … It’s not what you think … I promise, Laura, just let me explain … I didn’t want you to find out like this … Please, Laura, don’t leave! You can’t leave –’

‘It’s over, Ryan! I’m not going to be with someone who tells me lies all of the bloody time! I trusted you and you ruined everything! I thought you were trying to make things right, but all this time you were just going to Caroline, the slutty psycho of a bitch! How do you expect me to even think about trusting you again? Why would you even do it? Am I not good enough for you? How could you hurt me like this? I’ve never known such an arsehole –!’

I stormed around his apartment, grabbing as much of my things as I could and throwing them into a bag that Quinn gave me. When I had the bag full, I went for the door, too angry to even look at Ryan’s face again. My heart was on fire all over again and I couldn’t stop crying no matter how hard I tried. I was so hurt, and I could feel all of the happy memories inside my head just wash away completely. I cried even harder when I thought about how much I was going to miss him from now on. It was going to take me a long time to get used to not loving him.

‘Just relax for a minute,’ he pleaded, standing in the way of the door so I couldn’t leave. ‘Don’t break up with me, Laura … I know it was a mistake … but I’m so sorry. I should’ve told you the minute it started … But I’ll do anything, Laura … Just don’t leave … Think about the baby …’

I glared at him. ‘This is me thinking about the baby! I’m doing the best thing for us. I’m not staying with you just for the baby. It’s not healthy for the baby if we stay together and fight all the time! There is no way in hell that I’m going to raise a baby when my relationship with the father is nothing more than lies and fights! I’ll never be able to trust you again, so it’s over! Nothing you’ll ever say will change that. Just get over it … If you didn’t want this to happen, you shouldn’t have gone to that whore. But now you can have her all you want.’

Not wanting to listen to him begging for me to stay any longer, I pushed him out of the way and slammed the door behind me. I sobbed all the way down the stairway, out the main door and towards Quinn’s black and fancy BMW. He didn’t say anything as we pulled away and drove back to his old house. While I was inside talking to Ryan, Quinn went back to his newer house to get some money. As soon as I dumped all of my stuff into my new bedroom in his old house, cried and had a cup of tea, we went to the grocery store to buy some food.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked, watching me pick out which milk to get. He was looking at me as though I was one buckle short of a straitjacket. I couldn’t blame him, though. This had to be one of the worst days of my life. I just lost someone who I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with. No matter how much I tried to constantly distract myself, I felt like a submarine with an intense pressure leak and every person inside was dying.

Heaving a sigh, I rolled my eyes. ‘I’m not usually fussy about milk … but I heard a weird rumour that cow’s milk is actually cow sperm so I was thinking about trying goat’s milk, but what if that’s goat sperm? Ugh, it’s disgusting …’

He burst out laughing. ‘You do know that all cows are female, right?’

I blushed, realising how stupid I was to fall for that one. I was going to kill Kevin for telling me that. Grabbing a random carton of milk, I continued down the dairy aisle, wondering what else to get. How long was I going to be able to stay in Quinn’s? Where was I going to go when new people were going to rent out Quinn’s gorgeous house? I knew I wasn’t going to be able to move around forever. I needed somewhere permanent, somewhere I could live with my baby. But that meant I’d have to get a job soon to start paying rent … Ugh, why was I thinking about this in the middle of a grocery store?