Her books.
Nothing else mattered but proving the big jerk watching her as he absently turned her cellphone over in his hands, wrong. She wrote day and night, ignoring the exhaustion threatening to knock her on her ass and pushed herself, replaying the words that came out of his mouth when he’d destroyed everything. Every time she remembered those words, Kristen pushed herself harder, determined to make him regret ever saying them, until finally, they didn’t matter anymore.
Hedidn’t matter.
It took time, but she was finally at the point in her life where she could tell herself that it had all been a dream, every smile, every laugh, and all those times that he used to make her feel like she-
It didn’t matter.
“You know what I’ve been wondering all this time?” Garrett asked, looking bored as Kristen found herself debating trying to climb down the rose trellis, but since that would involve climbing onto the large roof above her and trying to shimmy down the side, she decided that her best bet was to stay right where she was and hope that he finally had enough and let this go so that they could both move on with their lives.
“I honestly don’t care,” Kristen said with a resigned sigh as she sat down and wrapped her arms around herself, knowing that the stubborn jerk wasn’t about to let this go, not when he finally had her where he wanted her.
“I know you don’t,” Garrett murmured absently as he considered her for a moment before absently nodding as he glanced around them, taking in her backyard. “And that’s the problem.”
“No, the problem is that you don’t know how to let this go,” Kristen said, still amazed that he’d quit his job at a very prestigious law firm all so that he could buy the decrepit old house across from her and make her life a living hell. But then again, he’d always been determined. It was actually one of the things that she used to like about him.
“I don’t know how to let this go?” Garrett asked, his lips twitching with amusement as she decided to take that moment to run her eyes over him, once again finding herself noting all the changes the years had brought and had to admit that there weren’t many.
He was still incredibly handsome, his dark hair was still kept short, he looked like he’d put on more muscle, but the eyes thatused to light up when they saw her had turned cold over the years. He also didn’t look like he smiled anymore. She used to love his smile, Kristen thought, biting back a sigh as she waited for him to get this over with so that she could move on to the next phase of her life, hopefully one that didn’t involve him.
“You really don’t,” Kristen said, gesturing for him to get on with it.
Nodding, Garrett murmured, “Fair enough, but I’m not the one who can’t stop writing about me, now, am I?”
Sighing heavily, Kristen shrugged as she muttered, “I give up.”
“You had no fucking right to put me in that fucking book,” Garrett bit out.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kristen said, sick and tired of-
“I wonder who this could be,” Garrett murmured, sounding thoughtful as he glanced down at her phone while Kristen sat there, trying not to panic as the ringtone that she’d been waiting for the past year started playing.
This couldn’t be happening.
Not now, Kristen told herself as she sat there, feeling sick to her stomach. “Please give me back my phone, Garrett,” she said, swallowing hard as she held out her hand, praying that he took pity on her this one time so that she could fix this before it was too late.
“Oh, look at that, you saved the number as ‘Life Changing Phone Call’,” Garrett murmured as Kristen forced herself to stand up on wobbly legs as she continued holding her hand out, too desperate to care that she could fall to her death, not when everything was riding on this phone call.
“Please, Garrett,” Kristen said, hating to beg him for anything, but she didn’t have a choice. Not if she-
“Of course,” Garrett murmured, moving to hand the phone back to her only to drop his hand away as he added, “Just as soon as you tell me what I want to know.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything!” Kristen snapped, sick and tired of playing this damn game with him.
“True,” Garrett murmured, looking thoughtful as he made a show of examining her phone and-
“No!”
-tossed it off the roof
For a moment, Kristen could only stand there, staring at him in disbelief while she tried to wrap her mind around what just happened as she thought about all the shit he’d put her through over the years. She thought about the moment when she’d told him about her first book, about the way that he’d pulled her into his arms and congratulated her before he plucked the iPad out of her hands with that carefree smile that she used to love and started reading it. She remembered the moment that smile slowly disappeared and the look of disbelief that took over before he destroyed everything.
She thought about the years that followed, the way that he went out of his way to make her life a living hell until she’d finally had enough and left only to have him show up five years later and do it all over again. For the past year, he did everything that he could to piss her off, hoping that it would be enough to make her finally admit that he’d been right all along and she’d-
This ended now, Kristen decided as she closed her eyes and slowly exhaled only to follow that up with a firm nod.
Granted, she should have ended this when he suddenly showed up nine months ago, but in her defense, she never expected to see him again. Not after what happened last time. If she had, she probably would have refrained from grabbing that garden hose and tried to shove it down his-
