Red 2 (PUBLISHED)

Chapter Four

I didn't see her again after she left. For the millionth fucking time. You wanna hear something crazy? I actually wanted to chase after her. Beg for answers, even, but then common sense clicked in my head and I remembered that she doesn't deserve me pining for her any longer. Not after she ripped my freaking heart out of my chest and never bothered to put it back.

One text.

I was waiting for just one text message to give me a reasonable explanation for what she did. But I never got that message, and my soul withered away each passing day I anxiously checked my message inbox. Only to find it empty like my heart. She drained my once full-heart, filling it with ice and simmering rage. And I wanted just one kind of consolation. I was praying for a fantasy that she hadn't betrayed me and my trust, that she was the girl I fell so hard in love for.

But she wasn't that girl.

And I wondered if she was ever that girl.

Anyways, I put her out of my mind and continued on like I had for the past four months. Wake up. Workout. Work alongside Ellis. Come home. Throw a party. Go to sleep drunk. Wake up -- and do the same thing all over again.

And again.

And again.

And... again.

My body is growing tired from the constant liquor and sometimes drugs I put in my body, then push when working out right after, but I couldn't stop the routine. It made me feel number after a while, and that was the whole point. To forget about her and act as the everyday college boy -- getting wasted at night, bullshitting through the days. Even if I was losing a part of me with each shot, every mile I clock on the treadmill.

"Hey. You okay, man?" Ellis waves his pen in front of my eyes.

I snap out of my thoughts and push him pen away, smiling. "Yeah, I'm fine," I lie and focus my attention on the man pitching us an idea to expand my father's hotels to the Caribbean. I could care less, but I actually have to.

In the past, I told my father to fuck off, that I wasn't going to take over his empire when I grew of age. I turned down every business meeting to learn after him and focused on my art.

But ever since she left me four months ago, I said fuck it and decided to refocus my attention to his business. I thought to myself as I sat in front of an empty canvas like I had for weeks after waking up in the hospital: why the hell not? She took away the colors anyway.

The meeting ends about ten minutes later, and Ellis and I head to my father's office to brief him what we learned. A lot of the female employees stare at us as we roam through the hallways, each more in awe than the last. It's funny; a guy puts on a suit and all of a sudden he isn't a 'boy' anymore, but a 'sex god' as one of the employees, Becca, claimed as she (as others have tried multiple times) attempted to seduce me.

"Are you sure you were fine back there?" Ellis asks, blue eyes shining with worry. His gray suit jacket crinkles a little as he reaches for my father's glass door and pushes it open.

"Yes, I'm fine, mommy," I tease and his eyes roll.

While he is my partner in this learning thing his father and mine have arranged, he's a friend that worries when I stumble into the building glasses stuffed over blood shot eyes, feet stumbling over each other. I'm a mess most of the time, but he covers for me every time. And I'm damn grateful to have him as a friend.

"I think you had one too many juice boxes last night, babyboy." He teases back and I nudge into him, laughing out loud. But I stop the minute we walk inside and spot my father on the phone. He gestures for us to be quiet with a single hard glare, and I roll my eyes and plop into one of the uncomfortable leather chairs in front of his glass desk.