“I won’t call. I won’t email. I’m going to give you the time I should have given you in the beginning. I knew you were hurt and I still pursued this, so I’m going to take a step back and let you do what you need to do to move on.” He paused and she could see he was hurting just as much. “And if you decide…that I’m not the man you want to move on with, or if you need more time, you call me…and we’ll cancel the wedding.”
She was so confused, her heart torn between these two amazing men. “I don’t want you to go,” she whispered, black tears still rolling down her cheeks.
“I don’t want to go. Trisha, I know how you feel about me, but right now we both don’t know how you feel about Tyler. And maybe I’m just an arrogant, selfish prick, but I refuse to have you that way. It’s all or nothing.” His jaw tightened, a sign that he was a little annoyed. “I pushed too hard, too fast and I’m willing to give you some breathing room to make a decision. Maybeyou and Tyler need some closure. But understand why I’m doing this. There willnotbe another day that I come home to find youcryingover yourex. Clear?”
She smiled and gave him a small nod. “Clear.”
“Good. Now give me that nose.”
She giggled, sticking her nose up for him to kiss. He always did that. He knew how much she hated ruining her make-up and even though she was a mess, it was a habit now. She let out a deep sigh as his arms wrapped around her. He was right. It wasn’t fair to declare vows to one man when she still had unresolved feelings for another. She needed to take this time and use it wisely. She needed to think long and hard about what and who she really wanted. She needed to make a decision. And all of this could only happen after having a good, long chat with Tyler.
The Confrontation
Tyler exhaled slow, rhythmic breaths as his feet pounded against the damp pavement. Nothing cleared his mind like a hard, long run through David Rodgers Park. The temperature was dropping as November drew to a close and more often than not, it rained. It was barely a drizzle now, but the sky was still gray, the ground was still wet.
He ran down the curvy path heading back towards the entrance of the park. He was due to meet Jordan in half an hour, but he needed to have a shower first before he went to her place.
He past the swing sets, taking note of the little girls stomping in puddles. As he rounded the last curve, he spotted her. And he stopped. Just stopped.
“Trisha?” he said, huffing heavily as he tried to get his breath back. “What are you doing here?”
“I went by your place and Walt told me you were out for a run. I want to talk to you.”
He ran a hard hand over his jaw, wondering if he should even entertain this conversation. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he clipped curtly, walking past her and towards the entrance of the park.
This relationship had been dead to him for months now. They’d both moved on and there was no point in rehashing the past when it would in no way affect his future.
She followed behind him, taking hasty steps as she struggled to keep up with him in her designer heels. “Let’s just go someplace. Let’s go get a coffee and—”
“No.” He pulled on his hoodie and lengthened his strides.
“Tyler, please.”
The gap between them was getting bigger and he was glad because he was becoming exceedingly more irritated. “I said no.”
“We never spoke about what happened.”
That made him stop dead in his tracks and when he turned to face her, all he felt was raw hostility rising up inside him. “It’s eight months later and you want to talk about this now?” He closed the gap between them, towering above her small frame. “I’ll tell you what happened. I came home one day and you were gone. No clothes in your closet, no toiletries in the bathroom. Everything gone. You don’t take my calls. You refused to see me. No explanations. Not one conversation to let me know you were unhappy.”
“I wasn’t unhappy,” she whispered, slowly shaking her head. “I was never unhappy. Emotionally, I just wanted more than you were willing to give.”
“So youleave?” The word tasted so vile in his mouth, he had to swallow to get rid of the bitterness. “You knew what my mom did…you knew…and then you go and do the same thing to me.”
Just saying these things to her had his breath hitching, had his fingertips stinging with anger. He could have gone along just fine never having this conversation. For months he’d wanted to talk to her, find out why she did it and now he simply didn’t care. It didn’t matter what her reasons were.
“I’m sorry I hurt you.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “I’m not hurt.”
“Are you angry?”
“This doesn’t matter to me anymore, so generally, I’m not angry…but right now I’m pissed. You come back after all this time and I don’t know what you’re expecting from me. After what you did, you should havezeroexpectations. When you left, it got me so twisted. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe youwould actually do that to me. Despite what Matt kept saying, I was willing to look past it. I thought maybe you were just confused, maybe you just needed some time and eventually you’d come back. But then three months later, I find out you’re getting married to someone else.” He sneered, tasting more bitterness in his mouth but this time it was much harder to swallow. “And that gets me more twisted, because I don’t know why you left in the first place. So I’m driving myself insane, thinking of a way to get you back. And then I get one. I had it all planned out. Use Jordan to make you jealous, take her to all the places you like, ’cause I thought maybe if you saw us together, you’d realize what you lost.”
Her big green eyes met his and she looked expectant, hopeful. “So your relationship with Jordan was all fake? You were just using her?”
That question had rage gushing through him like a burst water main and he had to take a few seconds to calm down before he spoke again. “My relationship with Jordan is not your concern. You gave up your right to know anything about my personal life the day you up and left me.” He turned and headed down the path again.
“That’s why I left,” she said shakily from behind him. He stopped but didn’t turn around. “This is the first time you’ve ever really opened up to me about how you feel and as soon I start asking questions, you close up again. That’s what it was like being with you for three years, Tyler. I give all of me and you give parts of you. It’s a strain on the heart.”
