“With your new found wealth, hopefully you’ll find your friends are more loyal than some of mine have been.”
Then she’s out the door and walking swiftly towards the elevators. I’m on her heels before I know it and my hand reaches out to grab hers.
“Andi,” I say on a whisper.
She turns to me and I see tears in her eyes, though she’s fighting hard to keep them from falling down her cheeks. My hand cups her cheek and for just a few seconds, she leans her face into my hand and closes her eyes. A single tear rolls down her cheek and I wipe it away with the thumb of my other hand. She suddenly tenses and jerks her head up, out of my caress.
She swallows hard, “What do you want, Luke?”
“I want to talk. I’ve called, sent texts and even came to your house. I’m just asking for time – time to say the things I need to say and time to hear whatever you have to say to me. Please.”
Her eyes slowly roam around the empty hallway, taking time to thoroughly study the carpet and the elevator buttons, before she softly replies, “Ourtimehas passed, Luke.”
All the oxygen in the building has suddenly been sucked out becauseI. Can’t. Fucking. Breathe.
“No,” I say on what I’m sure the last bit of oxygen reserves I have in my lungs.
“It’s too late, Luke,” she replies with a choke.
The elevator dings, the door opens and she walks backwards until she’s inside it. Our eyes remain locked on each other as the doors close. I don’t care that we’re on the 16thfloor. I hit the stairs and take them two…or sometimes five…at a time until I’m busting out the door into the lobby. The security guard at the front desk startles at the sound of the door slamming into the wall as I run to the elevators.
My chest is heaving but not from the physical exertion of running down the stairs but from my heart that’s splintering into a million pieces inside me. I reach the elevator just before the doors open and I get my speech ready to make her listen to me. If I have to carry her out of her thrown over my shoulder like a fucking caveman, I will do it. I block the doors and get ready for a fight….but she’s not there.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ANDI
Time? He wants time to talk – now? After my psychiatric-patient pictures have been splattered all over the news and internet, he decides he wants to talk to me. After his father tries to blackmail me to get the property he wanted, now he wants to talk. After he left me at his parents’ house, broke his promise, broke my heart and just fucking walked away from me, now he wants to talk.
A thought takes root in my mind….something I haven’t considered until now.He was in on this from the start – that’s why he reacted that way. His dad gave him his planned out that night – a way out of our relationship and away from me. It makes sense to me now – why else would he not even ask me any questions? Why else would he drive off and leave me stranded with the very people who were blackmailing me?
He’s the one who needs to be in the psych ward, dammit!
My anger hits a boiling point and I hit the button for the next floor and get off the elevator. I make my way back up to the 16thfloor to give him a minute of my time – intent on only telling him what’s on my mind and not giving him a chance to say anything. But he’s not there when I exit the other elevator and I run into his parents, who are more than a little shocked to see me again so soon.
I brush past them without a word and barely a glance as I walk towards Bill’s office. I’m still looking around for Luke because I’m intent on finishing this now.Closure. Not finding him, I go back to the elevator and I’m relieved to see his parents have already left. I hit the button for the 6thfloor to take the bridge to the parking lot. My phone beeps in my purse, telling me I have a text. It’s from Luke.
L: Andi….please
U and ur dad got what u wanted. Stop pretending now & leave me alone.
L: NO, Andi, that’s not
He didn’t finish his text but now my phone is ringing. He’s calling me to finish his sentence and have this conversation out verbally but he’s shit out of luck. I have nothing more to say to him. I decline his call and every consecutive one after that until I turn my phone off to be left alone. I consider stopping by the cell phone store to get my number changed but decide I am way too mentally drained to do that today. I make a mental note to do it later.
When I get home,Christina, Tania and Katie are waiting for me in the driveway. Thankfully they’re in one car so I open both garage doors and tell Christina to pull her car inside. If Luke comes by and sees a car here, I know he won’t leave. Another mental note to call that real estate agent that I’ve been meaning to call but have been putting off.
Procrastinators unite – tomorrow!
My girls don’t have to ask – they know where everything is and what I need. They make quick work with the margarita machine and soon we’re all headed to Margaritaville with Jimmy. I give them a recap of my day and I’m infinitely grateful that they don’t need all the details of my mental hospital stay to believe me when I say it was all based on a lie. They know me well enough to let me have a little breathing room and time to regroup.
Christinaturns on my iPhone to put it on the speaker dock and one text after another comes through all at once. Followed by notifications of numerous voicemails. We ignore them, turn on the music and turn up the volume. The hot tub on my back porch has never felt better than it does right now. We’re all in it, only leaving the hot water and relaxing jets to use the margarita machine and refill our pitcher. Several times.
I’m thankful to have a large house with multiple bedrooms and bathrooms because everyone will be staying with me tonight. Actually, we have done this pretty frequently, so every one of them have some clothes here. And whatever they don’t have, they know they can just take mine – except my toothbrush, of course. It feels a lot like when we were in college and all shared a 4-person dorm room.
I don’t know what I’d do without my fun and supportive best friends.
Friday night at the club with my girls, I plan to get my drink on and try to feel better. I still haven’t talked to Luke or responded to his daily text messages. And I obviously haven’t changed my number yet. But I have started back at the gym instead of letting him run me off from one of the few places that have ever felt like home to me. I am glad that we’ve somehow missed each other all week, though. I’m not getting into this front of Mack and the guys.
