Filed to story: Swallow Me Whole (Sadie & Ashton) Book Free
Jules
It all comes down to a fucking toothbrush. The absence of it rips a hole in my heart. No, that missing toothbrush obliterates me, scattering any chance of hope I have that he’ll come back. Clutching my chest, I stumble from the bathroom back to my pitiful spot on the bed, but nothing lessens the sobs holding me hostage to this devastation. It sears and consumes. Makes breathing hard as hell. I can’t see past it, and the idea of going on with this gaping hole in my soul seems impossible.
I hear the front door of my apartment creak open, and the sound busts through my pain-induced neurosis. Sweat drips down my cleavage. It’s ten in the morning, but the temperature has risen to a humid ninety degrees, thanks to Oklahoma summer heat. It doesn’t help that the air conditioner decided to take a crap yesterday.
Fisting my hands over my chest, I watch the bedroom door—the one he left ajar when he stormed from my life an hour ago. Footsteps pad down the hall, and I curse that sliver of hope that makes my breath catch in my lungs.
I know it isn’t him—I fucking know it—but my naive heart speeds up anyway. The footfalls halt, and someone pushes the door all the way open. My sister stands in the hall, somehow impervious to the heat that’s making me sweat buckets. She’s put-together as always despite her ebony hair twisting into a messy bun. She’s not wearing any makeup, so I figure she must be on her way to a photo shoot. I wipe my eyes, hoping she’s in a rush on this Sunday morning and won’t notice that I’m falling apart at the seams.
“Oh, Jules.” She crosses to where I’m sitting on the bed, and the mattress dips under her weight as she settles next to me. “Chris told me you guys broke up.” Her perfect brows furrow in sympathy, but the tone of her voice belies her words. I love my sister. I do. But everyone knows she can be on the self-important side. Even so, just the fact that she’s here when she has somewhere else to be warms my aching heart a little.
“You saw him?”
She seems taken aback for a second. “Um, yeah. At the gas station. He looked like hell.”
The pain of the morning leaks from my eyes, no matter how hard I try to hold it back. “He just…”
Left.
Shaking my head with a sniffle, I dash the salty despair from my face. Will the tears ever stop? I’ve been heaving sobs since Chris made it clear no amount of bargaining or begging would stop him from leaving. The last words we said to each other were the biggest blow, and they torpedo through my mind now.
If you love me, you’ll stay.
Then I guess I don’t love you enough for this shit, Jules.
“He’s gone, Brit.”
“Maybe he just needs some time to cool off.”
I shake my head. That’s what I’d told myself until I spotted the toothbrush holder with only one left in it.
Mine.
Sitting there alone like me.
And I’d known. Chris never took his toothbrush when he “needed space.” He’d disappear for a day or two, but not his toothbrush. That fucker would remain in its rightful place on the bathroom counter next to mine, where it belonged.
Until today.
He’d packed every fucking thing he owned, down to that damn toothbrush.
“What happened?” she asks, brushing a few strays of blond hair from my damp cheeks.
I don’t know what to tell her. The guilt’s been eating me alive for the past two weeks. All the gory details are going to come out soon anyway, and I’ll have no choice but to deal with the blowback. But finding the words to explain what I’d done…
It’s hard as fuck, because I have no conceivable explanation.
“It’s my fault.” I really do need to get this off my chest, and Brit is the closest thing I have to a confidant since my best friend moved to Seattle a few months ago.
“You can talk to me.” Her hand settles on my shoulder, and I wonder if she can somehow hear the struggle going on in my head.
“Remember when Chris and I took a break a couple of weeks ago?”
“Yeah,” she says with a nod. “He took off for a few days. But you worked things out, right?”
“I…” My breath hitches. “I made a huge mistake, Brit.”
Long lashes flutter over her wide sea-blue eyes, but she doesn’t say anything. Brit can be patient when she tries.
“God.” I shudder out a breath before burying my face in my hands. “I’d do anything to take it back.”
She rubs a comforting circle between my shoulder blades, and when I raise my head, I don’t find a smidgeon of judgment in her expression. Only wary curiosity.
“What’d you do, Jules?”
“I got wasted.” That’s significant enough on its own, since I rarely drink. A beat passes in which the words try to lodge in my throat, thick as molasses. “I…I slept with Perry.”
Perry Reynolds. My boss. My gorgeous and persistent married boss.
I wish like hell he hadn’t been there at the bar that night. He’d been surrounded by his usual crowd, including his partner at the firm. Darlene, who hates my ever-loving guts and happens to be his wife’s best friend.
He’d kept his distance at first, but I remember him moving closer with each drink I poured down my throat.
Maybe he’d felt sorry for me because of the way I’d sat alone, drowning my sorrows in the bottom of a glass. Okay, more than one glass. More like eight or nine. Shit, to be honest, I can’t remember how much I drank that night. In fact, I recall zilch after he hopped onto the barstool next to mine.
But the following morning…well, the memory of waking next to his naked hotness in a hotel room is ingrained in my mind.
The people at work would accuse us of heading there all along, of stumbling headfirst into a secret and shameful romp in the sheets. From the day he hired me, the office grapevine took us through the wringer, whispering about the heated vibes between the boss man and his latest assistant. But I never had any intention of acting on the harmless flirting between Perry and me. Besides, screwing unattainable men is far from my style, and I had Chris.
Had.
I choke at the thought.
“It’s really over,” I say, my voice little more than a strangled whisper. A single moment of weakness on my part ended up being the final breaking point in my relationship with Chris. He isn’t coming back.
Brit stands and pulls me to my feet. “So you made a mistake. Get over it, baby sister. Life happens.”
I raise my brows, stunned by her harsh tone, though it isn’t the first time she’s spoken to me like that. “Tell me how you really feel, Brit.”
Dropping my arm, she gestures toward my pathetic state of undoneness, from the blotchiness I’m certain is coloring my cheeks to the faded yoga pants hugging my hips. “You’re a mess, Jules. I’m only telling it like it is.”
“If this is your idea of cheering me up, you missed the mark by a fucking mile.”
She despises when I drop the F-bomb. So does Mom, for that matter. They believe speaking such words is unrefined. Just as I expect, Brit purses her lips.
“I didn’t come here to cheer you up. I came here to get your ass moving.”
Whoa. When Brit cusses she isn’t messing around.
“I’ve gotta go into the city for a shoot,” she says, checking the time on her cell, “but as soon as I’m finished I’ll come pick you up. We’ll get our hair and nails done.”