WAKING UP TO REALITY
Through the night, Juliet slept off and on. When she did sleep, she slept deep and sound. When she woke up, she found herself on her side, forcing her eyes to adjust to the darkness so that she could watch Eric sleep. She'd never done that before, watch a man sleep. Hell, she'd never even shared a bed with a man since her husband, except to have her way with him and then leave.
Watching Eric sleep made her smile. The way his lips stayed in that permanent pout, the way his bicep flexed when he tucked his arm under his head. She liked the sound of his slow, even breathing, and the fact that he didn't snore. Watching him sleep invoked emotions that radiated throughout her entire body, good emotions that filled her heart and made her shoulders feel lighter. Wow, things sure were easier on you when you weren't fighting with yourself all the time. Sometimes, very rarely, surrender is all you need.
The last time she opened her eyes, sunlight trailed through her sheer curtains and filled the room with a dim, gray light. There was enough light to see her room, however, and she opened her eyes with a smile. Stretching her body out, savoring the way it felt to elongate her limbs at a leisurely pace, she bit her lip and she grinned wider. It was daylight now. Now she couldn't wait to watch Eric sleep and witness all his features, without struggle. He'd been so quiet...so peaceful...
Because he wasn't there.
Juliet had rolled over onto her opposite side, only to find her bed empty. She lay there for a moment, staring at the empty space, blinking her eyes to come to grips with the reality before her. Her heart began to race with panic but she chose not to react so quickly. Instead, she sat up and reached down beside her bed, retrieved her sweater, and wrapped it around her body as she planted her feet on the floor and felt how difficult and heavy it was to stand. She stood still for a moment, observing the room with her eyes, her ears listening for any sound, but she heard nothing. Nothing but the terrifying silence.
Quietly, softly, she walked into the living room, stopping in the doorway. Still, there was no sign of life. Not in the kitchen when she walked inside it, not in the bathroom, not in the spare bedroom, not anywhere. The only sign of life was in the last place she wanted to look--the only lock that was in use on her otherwise locked-down door: the one on the doorknob. Because the rest of the locks didn't lock on the outside without a key.
She stood in stunned silence, her body tensing up, swallowing her rising emotions. She didn't want to breathe because acknowledging that she had breath inside her made this moment very real and not the nightmare she wished she was having.
Slowly, carefully and deliberately, she locked the other three locks on the door, one by one. With each lock that was left, she locked her heart, she locked her soul, and she locked out Eric. He would never come back through that door. In her world, he ceased to exist.
Hugging her sweater tighter around her, she turned around and looked around the rest of the condo. She glanced at the refrigerator where the two of them had laughed and kissed just hours earlier. She glanced at her bookcase where he'd apparently been snooping in order to learn about her musical tastes. In just a few short hours, he had walked in and tainted her home, creating beautiful memories that she had now developed a sickening hate for. Now her home would never be the same. It would never be just hers. It would no longer be an escape, it would no longer be safe. He had taken that away from her.
Slowly, she walked back into her bedroom. Stopping by the bed, she stared down at it. She wished he was a dream. She prayed for the night of magic and passion she'd just spent to be a cruel, violent nightmare. Except that it wasn't. The side of the bed that he slept on was still disheveled, the pillow used, the sheets wrinkled. And she knew...she knew that when her now exhausted body crawled back into it that it would still smell like him. The scent that she'd fallen for, the scent that had comforted her, the scent that went straight through her veins upon her inhalation of it.
The more she stared down at her bed, the less her body could take. She swallowed hard, her throat in pain from fighting the tears. Except that they were relentless, and they didn't just stop at her eyes--her tears waged a full, brutal attack on her entire body. Climbing in the bed and pulling the comforter tight over her body, she buried her head in her pillow and she cried the most gut-wrenching sobs she had ever cried in her entire life. She'd never known pain like this before. She almost wished she were suffering the abuse at the hands of her late husband rather than feel the pain she was in now. How could he do this to her? More importantly, how could she have done this to herself? She allowed this to happen. She opened herself up, she gave herself to him, she told him all her secrets--and he abandoned her. The trust she thought she felt for him was a lie. Who was she kidding, anyway? She never knew what it felt like to trust a person--outside of Beth, that was. And then this man came along and she--she betrayed herself. She betrayed everything she believed in, everything she had worked for--and he turned out to be no better than the rest of them.
Why? Why, after all this time, was she so convinced that he was different? Why did he look at her the way he did? Why did he touch her the way he did? Why did he--why did he kiss her like she was the only woman in the world?
God, his kiss. That was what did her in. That was what she grew addicted to. Kissing him was the most euphoric thing she had ever felt. Kissing him stopped time, it stopped space, it defied all logic...it made her float on air.
She missed him. Sweet lord have mercy, if there was a god, after those few hours she spent with him, she missed him so much. She didn't want to. She wished she didn't. She wished she could erase him out of her memory completely or pretend he didn't exist. Today she would wash her bed linens--and tuck them away deep, deep into the closet, never to use them again. She would never listen to her favorite song ever again because now she hated it. He'd ruined everything for her, her entire life. He'd ruined her home, her music, her favorite sheets--he had ruined it all. He was a disease. He was toxic. He was poison. Just like all the other men.
Her cell phone rang by her bed, but she knew it wouldn't be him. They'd never exchanged numbers. When she looked at it and saw that it was Beth, she was proven right. Sweeping her finger across the screen to ignore it, she placed it back on her nightstand, only for it to start ringing again. Getting the call over with, she answered this time, creaking out her greeting.
"Tell me you seriously didn't just ignore my call," Beth said.
"Beth," Juliet whispered, nearly inaudible. "Now's not a good time."
"But--but I'm right outside the door, I've been knocking forever."
"Not today," she said.
"Sweetie, are you--are you okay? Open the door, let me in."
"I'm sorry. I'm--I don't feel well, I'm--I'm very sick. I'll just--I'll just rest today and I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"
"Um...yeah, okay. Are you sure you don't need anything--?"
"I'm fine. Thank you."
"Juliet. I love you."
"I love you, too," Juliet replied, ending the call before the tears began to fall again.
Now she shed fresh, brand new tears. This time for Beth. How could she have done such a thing to Beth? Beth knew nothing of anything Juliet had told Eric. She didn't even have a clue. Juliet had been too ashamed to talk about it and, over time, had chosen to try to forget about it. She never intended for anyone to know. She'd spent all these years pretending to be someone else and she supposed that if she went with it long enough, that her past would cease to exist--and then it wouldn't matter either way. Realistically, though, your past never goes away and you never know when it's going to rear its ugly head again--therefore, deceiving the ones you do care about does nothing but hurt them. Juliet was selfish and she was a horrible person.
Maybe she deserved it. Maybe she deserved for Eric to abandon her like he did. Maybe he woke up and realized the mistake he made and realized how rotten of a person she was for keeping such secrets. Maybe her secrets were too much for him to handle. Maybe he was a coward, maybe he was too young, maybe her baggage was too heavy.
It didn't matter what the reasoning was. The point was, he still left her without a trace and even she knew that was wrong. And she hated him for it. Hatred was the only way she could cope.
She'd spent several hours in the bed before she finally decided to get out of it and strip it down. Once she stripped her bed down, he was gone. There was no Eric. There were no blue eyes, there was no blonde hair, there were no more smiles and no more beautiful whispers in her ear. There was nothing. And that was the way she preferred it.
_________________________________________
Eric was livid as he sat in the New York City police station. He was tempted to strangle Travis, himself, right in front of the cops just so sitting there would be worth it. There were very few times that Eric wished that he and Travis had fought to the death in the womb and this was one of those times.
It was Sunday. Eric had nowhere to be that day. He could still be curled up in the bed with his dream girl right now, had he not gotten that godforsaken phone call. Now he looked at his twin brother with pure hatred as he sauntered out the door and over to the front desk to collect his personal belongings.
"Hey," Travis nodded as he shoved his things in the pockets of the clothes he was still wearing from the night before. "Thanks for posting bail, man. Appreciate it."
"You have two seconds to start talking," Eric sneered as they walked out the front door.
"Gee, dear brother, I am fine, I am safe, and no burley men had their way with me, thank you so much for asking."
"One second."
"My court date is in two weeks. Most I'll get is probably a fine and community service."
"For what?"
"Disorderly conduct... a little public drunkenness...it was almost resisting arrest, except that by some miracle I managed to have, like, a split second of lucidity--"
"Why am I here, Travis?"
Travis sighed as they stepped off the steps and onto the sidewalk. "Because of that asshole that showed up at the party last night, man. I walked Beth home last night and that asshole was waiting for her at her condo. We got into a little scuffle and the bastard called the fucking cops."
"And you waited this long to call me?"
"Are you kidding? I called you the second they let me have my phone call last night. And your ass left me sitting there until it was convenient for you!"
"I didn't get the fucking message until right before I came out here, man. This is bullshit."
"Come on," Travis patronized. "It's not like you had anything else better to do today."
Eric didn't want to get into it. He didn't feel like discussing it. The time he spent with Juliet was all his own and he wouldn't dare cheapen it by talking about it like it was just a fling. It was none of Travis's business anyway.
The stories that she'd told him last night haunted him. They'd given him nightmares, even as he slept next to her, waking up to wrap her in his arms to protect her. He wanted nothing more than to take the pain away from her. He wanted to go back in time, change her past, make it all better. But then...selfishly, if she hadn't gone through all those horrifying things, he may never have found her--and finding her had changed his life.
Her past explained everything--everything--about her. All the rumors, all the stories...even the way she ran from him. He got it. He understood. It wasn't her fault that she was the way she was. It wasn't her fault that she didn't know any better, it wasn't her fault that she didn't know any other way to cope. On the surface she worked hard to show people the strong, independent, dominant woman that she was, but now he knew the truth. He knew the scared little girl she was on the inside. And now all he wanted to do was hold her.
Which he could be doing--had it not been for Travis.
He hadn't wanted to wake her. He probably shouldn't have left her the way he did, but she was so incredibly beautiful when she slept. And she snored, which was the most adorable thing in the world. He sat on the edge of the bed and he stroked her hair and he watched her sleep before he left. He even kissed her sleeping lips. But to wake her would have been a tragedy.
Once he'd dealt with Travis, he had intended to call her to follow up on the note he'd left her to see if she might want to go to dinner, but it dawned on him halfway to the police station that he hadn't gotten her phone number. He racked his brain and finally texted Terrell for it, who had yet to text him back. He could drop Travis off and go right back to her place, but he didn't want to seem pushy. Given her situation, he thought it best to take it slow. He didn't want to scare her off.
Once he had dropped Travis off at his place and gone back to his own, Terrell had texted him back. "Why didn't you talk to her last night when you had the chance?" He'd texted.
"Not the point," Eric texted back.
"Such a coward."
Eric rolled his eyes at his phone. "Not a coward. Just need her number."
"I'll ask later," Terrell texted back, along with her number. "She'll probably kill me for this."
Eric knew that she wouldn't and he couldn't wipe the boyish grin off his face as he programmed it into his phone. He sat on his couch, wasting no time at all making use of it.
It went to her voicemail. This disappointed him, but she could have been tied up and that was okay. Maybe she was still sleeping. Maybe she wasn't a morning person. God, he had so much to learn! "Hey, Juliet, it's Eric. I got your number from Terrell after I realized we didn't exchange them. Anyway, I wanted to apologize for leaving out like I did, I had to take care of something unexpected. I hoped we might have dinner tonight or something so, uh, give me a call back. I'll, uh, I'll be right here."
He put the phone down beside him but he didn't let go of it. This was crazy. He felt like a teenager again, waiting by the phone for a girl. Actually, most guys never waited by the phone. He was never "most guys" either. Unable to be patient, he also sent her a text, just in case she deleted the voicemail without recognizing his number.
And then he sat. And he waited. He turned on the TV and tried to get into the football game that he currently had money tied up in. It was by the second half of the second game that he realized that it was after dark and it was dinner time. And she had yet to call or text back.
The entire day had passed. His phone had remained completely silent.
_________________________________________________
Juliet sat on her couch in her ponytail and her glasses. She'd spent most of the day in the bed, feeling sorry for herself, and when she finally decided to get out of it and wash the linens, she took a shower and decided to get some work done. She sat on her couch, surrounded by her work, intending on putting together a proposal for the Miami contract she was trying to acquire and putting together a contract for T&K Contracting, but neither one got done.
Instead, she turned over a sheet of paper and she started drawing a house.
She spent the rest of the night drawing this house. She hadn't sat and done this in quite some time, as she felt like she'd finally found the home she belonged in. Except her home wasn't hers anymore. It wasn't safe anymore. The previous night was relatively short, but it had enough of an impact to tarnish what used to be her private getaway. Now she couldn't get away from anything. And, so, she drew a new house.
Nobody would ever find this house. Except maybe Beth. But nobody else. Nobody would ever come in and make her uncomfortable. Nobody would snoop around her bookcases, invite themselves into her bedroom, or cause her to tell secrets about herself that violated her privacy. Nobody would ever intrude on her life, nobody would ever take what was hers, nobody would ever hurt her. Not in this house. Not ever again.
Beth had called, but she dodged it again. She didn't know what to say to her. It was bad enough that she knew she wouldn't be able to speak to her without talking about Eric. It was even worse that she felt guilty for the secrets that she was harboring. And it wasn't so much the secrets anymore as much as it was how hurt Beth would be that she'd kept them from her in the first place. If she was going to pour her heart out to someone for the first time, it should not have been Eric.
Eric had called. And he had texted. Juliet chose to pretend it was the wrong number entirely and deleted the voicemail the second she heard his name. She deleted the text and then she blocked his number. She wanted nothing to do with him. She didn't even want to remember his name. She wanted to forget his eyes and his touch and the way his arms felt when he wrapped them around her. And his voice...God, his voice...
Never again. Never. Again.
She decided to sleep on the couch that night. There was no way she could bear laying in her bed in the dark, not after the memories it held. Beautiful, divine memories, tarnished by the one that traumatized her the most. The one that reminded her that the only thing she was good for was being left behind.
Curling up on the couch, clutching the blanket to her chest, a fresh set of tears came with the reminder of the painful loneliness that surrounded her. She never realized how lonely she actually was until Eric came along. She had intended on remaining blissfully ignorant of that fact for the rest of her life. But damn him. Damn that man, it was just one more thing he had stripped her of and taken with him in the night.
Most of the night, her eyes remained on her front door. She hardly slept a wink. Her sense of security had been completely shattered.
Through the night, Juliet slept off and on. When she did sleep, she slept deep and sound. When she woke up, she found herself on her side, forcing her eyes to adjust to the darkness so that she could watch Eric sleep. She'd never done that before, watch a man sleep. Hell, she'd never even shared a bed with a man since her husband, except to have her way with him and then leave.
Watching Eric sleep made her smile. The way his lips stayed in that permanent pout, the way his bicep flexed when he tucked his arm under his head. She liked the sound of his slow, even breathing, and the fact that he didn't snore. Watching him sleep invoked emotions that radiated throughout her entire body, good emotions that filled her heart and made her shoulders feel lighter. Wow, things sure were easier on you when you weren't fighting with yourself all the time. Sometimes, very rarely, surrender is all you need.
The last time she opened her eyes, sunlight trailed through her sheer curtains and filled the room with a dim, gray light. There was enough light to see her room, however, and she opened her eyes with a smile. Stretching her body out, savoring the way it felt to elongate her limbs at a leisurely pace, she bit her lip and she grinned wider. It was daylight now. Now she couldn't wait to watch Eric sleep and witness all his features, without struggle. He'd been so quiet...so peaceful...
Because he wasn't there.
Juliet had rolled over onto her opposite side, only to find her bed empty. She lay there for a moment, staring at the empty space, blinking her eyes to come to grips with the reality before her. Her heart began to race with panic but she chose not to react so quickly. Instead, she sat up and reached down beside her bed, retrieved her sweater, and wrapped it around her body as she planted her feet on the floor and felt how difficult and heavy it was to stand. She stood still for a moment, observing the room with her eyes, her ears listening for any sound, but she heard nothing. Nothing but the terrifying silence.
Quietly, softly, she walked into the living room, stopping in the doorway. Still, there was no sign of life. Not in the kitchen when she walked inside it, not in the bathroom, not in the spare bedroom, not anywhere. The only sign of life was in the last place she wanted to look--the only lock that was in use on her otherwise locked-down door: the one on the doorknob. Because the rest of the locks didn't lock on the outside without a key.
She stood in stunned silence, her body tensing up, swallowing her rising emotions. She didn't want to breathe because acknowledging that she had breath inside her made this moment very real and not the nightmare she wished she was having.
Slowly, carefully and deliberately, she locked the other three locks on the door, one by one. With each lock that was left, she locked her heart, she locked her soul, and she locked out Eric. He would never come back through that door. In her world, he ceased to exist.
Hugging her sweater tighter around her, she turned around and looked around the rest of the condo. She glanced at the refrigerator where the two of them had laughed and kissed just hours earlier. She glanced at her bookcase where he'd apparently been snooping in order to learn about her musical tastes. In just a few short hours, he had walked in and tainted her home, creating beautiful memories that she had now developed a sickening hate for. Now her home would never be the same. It would never be just hers. It would no longer be an escape, it would no longer be safe. He had taken that away from her.
Slowly, she walked back into her bedroom. Stopping by the bed, she stared down at it. She wished he was a dream. She prayed for the night of magic and passion she'd just spent to be a cruel, violent nightmare. Except that it wasn't. The side of the bed that he slept on was still disheveled, the pillow used, the sheets wrinkled. And she knew...she knew that when her now exhausted body crawled back into it that it would still smell like him. The scent that she'd fallen for, the scent that had comforted her, the scent that went straight through her veins upon her inhalation of it.
The more she stared down at her bed, the less her body could take. She swallowed hard, her throat in pain from fighting the tears. Except that they were relentless, and they didn't just stop at her eyes--her tears waged a full, brutal attack on her entire body. Climbing in the bed and pulling the comforter tight over her body, she buried her head in her pillow and she cried the most gut-wrenching sobs she had ever cried in her entire life. She'd never known pain like this before. She almost wished she were suffering the abuse at the hands of her late husband rather than feel the pain she was in now. How could he do this to her? More importantly, how could she have done this to herself? She allowed this to happen. She opened herself up, she gave herself to him, she told him all her secrets--and he abandoned her. The trust she thought she felt for him was a lie. Who was she kidding, anyway? She never knew what it felt like to trust a person--outside of Beth, that was. And then this man came along and she--she betrayed herself. She betrayed everything she believed in, everything she had worked for--and he turned out to be no better than the rest of them.
Why? Why, after all this time, was she so convinced that he was different? Why did he look at her the way he did? Why did he touch her the way he did? Why did he--why did he kiss her like she was the only woman in the world?
God, his kiss. That was what did her in. That was what she grew addicted to. Kissing him was the most euphoric thing she had ever felt. Kissing him stopped time, it stopped space, it defied all logic...it made her float on air.
She missed him. Sweet lord have mercy, if there was a god, after those few hours she spent with him, she missed him so much. She didn't want to. She wished she didn't. She wished she could erase him out of her memory completely or pretend he didn't exist. Today she would wash her bed linens--and tuck them away deep, deep into the closet, never to use them again. She would never listen to her favorite song ever again because now she hated it. He'd ruined everything for her, her entire life. He'd ruined her home, her music, her favorite sheets--he had ruined it all. He was a disease. He was toxic. He was poison. Just like all the other men.
Her cell phone rang by her bed, but she knew it wouldn't be him. They'd never exchanged numbers. When she looked at it and saw that it was Beth, she was proven right. Sweeping her finger across the screen to ignore it, she placed it back on her nightstand, only for it to start ringing again. Getting the call over with, she answered this time, creaking out her greeting.
"Tell me you seriously didn't just ignore my call," Beth said.
"Beth," Juliet whispered, nearly inaudible. "Now's not a good time."
"But--but I'm right outside the door, I've been knocking forever."
"Not today," she said.
"Sweetie, are you--are you okay? Open the door, let me in."
"I'm sorry. I'm--I don't feel well, I'm--I'm very sick. I'll just--I'll just rest today and I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"
"Um...yeah, okay. Are you sure you don't need anything--?"
"I'm fine. Thank you."
"Juliet. I love you."
"I love you, too," Juliet replied, ending the call before the tears began to fall again.
Now she shed fresh, brand new tears. This time for Beth. How could she have done such a thing to Beth? Beth knew nothing of anything Juliet had told Eric. She didn't even have a clue. Juliet had been too ashamed to talk about it and, over time, had chosen to try to forget about it. She never intended for anyone to know. She'd spent all these years pretending to be someone else and she supposed that if she went with it long enough, that her past would cease to exist--and then it wouldn't matter either way. Realistically, though, your past never goes away and you never know when it's going to rear its ugly head again--therefore, deceiving the ones you do care about does nothing but hurt them. Juliet was selfish and she was a horrible person.
Maybe she deserved it. Maybe she deserved for Eric to abandon her like he did. Maybe he woke up and realized the mistake he made and realized how rotten of a person she was for keeping such secrets. Maybe her secrets were too much for him to handle. Maybe he was a coward, maybe he was too young, maybe her baggage was too heavy.
It didn't matter what the reasoning was. The point was, he still left her without a trace and even she knew that was wrong. And she hated him for it. Hatred was the only way she could cope.
She'd spent several hours in the bed before she finally decided to get out of it and strip it down. Once she stripped her bed down, he was gone. There was no Eric. There were no blue eyes, there was no blonde hair, there were no more smiles and no more beautiful whispers in her ear. There was nothing. And that was the way she preferred it.
_________________________________________
Eric was livid as he sat in the New York City police station. He was tempted to strangle Travis, himself, right in front of the cops just so sitting there would be worth it. There were very few times that Eric wished that he and Travis had fought to the death in the womb and this was one of those times.
It was Sunday. Eric had nowhere to be that day. He could still be curled up in the bed with his dream girl right now, had he not gotten that godforsaken phone call. Now he looked at his twin brother with pure hatred as he sauntered out the door and over to the front desk to collect his personal belongings.
"Hey," Travis nodded as he shoved his things in the pockets of the clothes he was still wearing from the night before. "Thanks for posting bail, man. Appreciate it."
"You have two seconds to start talking," Eric sneered as they walked out the front door.
"Gee, dear brother, I am fine, I am safe, and no burley men had their way with me, thank you so much for asking."
"One second."
"My court date is in two weeks. Most I'll get is probably a fine and community service."
"For what?"
"Disorderly conduct... a little public drunkenness...it was almost resisting arrest, except that by some miracle I managed to have, like, a split second of lucidity--"
"Why am I here, Travis?"
Travis sighed as they stepped off the steps and onto the sidewalk. "Because of that asshole that showed up at the party last night, man. I walked Beth home last night and that asshole was waiting for her at her condo. We got into a little scuffle and the bastard called the fucking cops."
"And you waited this long to call me?"
"Are you kidding? I called you the second they let me have my phone call last night. And your ass left me sitting there until it was convenient for you!"
"I didn't get the fucking message until right before I came out here, man. This is bullshit."
"Come on," Travis patronized. "It's not like you had anything else better to do today."
Eric didn't want to get into it. He didn't feel like discussing it. The time he spent with Juliet was all his own and he wouldn't dare cheapen it by talking about it like it was just a fling. It was none of Travis's business anyway.
The stories that she'd told him last night haunted him. They'd given him nightmares, even as he slept next to her, waking up to wrap her in his arms to protect her. He wanted nothing more than to take the pain away from her. He wanted to go back in time, change her past, make it all better. But then...selfishly, if she hadn't gone through all those horrifying things, he may never have found her--and finding her had changed his life.
Her past explained everything--everything--about her. All the rumors, all the stories...even the way she ran from him. He got it. He understood. It wasn't her fault that she was the way she was. It wasn't her fault that she didn't know any better, it wasn't her fault that she didn't know any other way to cope. On the surface she worked hard to show people the strong, independent, dominant woman that she was, but now he knew the truth. He knew the scared little girl she was on the inside. And now all he wanted to do was hold her.
Which he could be doing--had it not been for Travis.
He hadn't wanted to wake her. He probably shouldn't have left her the way he did, but she was so incredibly beautiful when she slept. And she snored, which was the most adorable thing in the world. He sat on the edge of the bed and he stroked her hair and he watched her sleep before he left. He even kissed her sleeping lips. But to wake her would have been a tragedy.
Once he'd dealt with Travis, he had intended to call her to follow up on the note he'd left her to see if she might want to go to dinner, but it dawned on him halfway to the police station that he hadn't gotten her phone number. He racked his brain and finally texted Terrell for it, who had yet to text him back. He could drop Travis off and go right back to her place, but he didn't want to seem pushy. Given her situation, he thought it best to take it slow. He didn't want to scare her off.
Once he had dropped Travis off at his place and gone back to his own, Terrell had texted him back. "Why didn't you talk to her last night when you had the chance?" He'd texted.
"Not the point," Eric texted back.
"Such a coward."
Eric rolled his eyes at his phone. "Not a coward. Just need her number."
"I'll ask later," Terrell texted back, along with her number. "She'll probably kill me for this."
Eric knew that she wouldn't and he couldn't wipe the boyish grin off his face as he programmed it into his phone. He sat on his couch, wasting no time at all making use of it.
It went to her voicemail. This disappointed him, but she could have been tied up and that was okay. Maybe she was still sleeping. Maybe she wasn't a morning person. God, he had so much to learn! "Hey, Juliet, it's Eric. I got your number from Terrell after I realized we didn't exchange them. Anyway, I wanted to apologize for leaving out like I did, I had to take care of something unexpected. I hoped we might have dinner tonight or something so, uh, give me a call back. I'll, uh, I'll be right here."
He put the phone down beside him but he didn't let go of it. This was crazy. He felt like a teenager again, waiting by the phone for a girl. Actually, most guys never waited by the phone. He was never "most guys" either. Unable to be patient, he also sent her a text, just in case she deleted the voicemail without recognizing his number.
And then he sat. And he waited. He turned on the TV and tried to get into the football game that he currently had money tied up in. It was by the second half of the second game that he realized that it was after dark and it was dinner time. And she had yet to call or text back.
The entire day had passed. His phone had remained completely silent.
_________________________________________________
Juliet sat on her couch in her ponytail and her glasses. She'd spent most of the day in the bed, feeling sorry for herself, and when she finally decided to get out of it and wash the linens, she took a shower and decided to get some work done. She sat on her couch, surrounded by her work, intending on putting together a proposal for the Miami contract she was trying to acquire and putting together a contract for T&K Contracting, but neither one got done.
Instead, she turned over a sheet of paper and she started drawing a house.
She spent the rest of the night drawing this house. She hadn't sat and done this in quite some time, as she felt like she'd finally found the home she belonged in. Except her home wasn't hers anymore. It wasn't safe anymore. The previous night was relatively short, but it had enough of an impact to tarnish what used to be her private getaway. Now she couldn't get away from anything. And, so, she drew a new house.
Nobody would ever find this house. Except maybe Beth. But nobody else. Nobody would ever come in and make her uncomfortable. Nobody would snoop around her bookcases, invite themselves into her bedroom, or cause her to tell secrets about herself that violated her privacy. Nobody would ever intrude on her life, nobody would ever take what was hers, nobody would ever hurt her. Not in this house. Not ever again.
Beth had called, but she dodged it again. She didn't know what to say to her. It was bad enough that she knew she wouldn't be able to speak to her without talking about Eric. It was even worse that she felt guilty for the secrets that she was harboring. And it wasn't so much the secrets anymore as much as it was how hurt Beth would be that she'd kept them from her in the first place. If she was going to pour her heart out to someone for the first time, it should not have been Eric.
Eric had called. And he had texted. Juliet chose to pretend it was the wrong number entirely and deleted the voicemail the second she heard his name. She deleted the text and then she blocked his number. She wanted nothing to do with him. She didn't even want to remember his name. She wanted to forget his eyes and his touch and the way his arms felt when he wrapped them around her. And his voice...God, his voice...
Never again. Never. Again.
She decided to sleep on the couch that night. There was no way she could bear laying in her bed in the dark, not after the memories it held. Beautiful, divine memories, tarnished by the one that traumatized her the most. The one that reminded her that the only thing she was good for was being left behind.
Curling up on the couch, clutching the blanket to her chest, a fresh set of tears came with the reminder of the painful loneliness that surrounded her. She never realized how lonely she actually was until Eric came along. She had intended on remaining blissfully ignorant of that fact for the rest of her life. But damn him. Damn that man, it was just one more thing he had stripped her of and taken with him in the night.
Most of the night, her eyes remained on her front door. She hardly slept a wink. Her sense of security had been completely shattered.