Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
I was a college freshman the day her mother died, an undiagnosed brain aneurysm taking her only family member from her without warning.
She sat with me on the couch in my parents’ living room after everyone else had gone to bed because she had nowhere else to go. I held her while she cried, my lack of experience clogging my throat while I tried to figure out how to unbreak her heart, knowing it was impossible.
I just held her, and she seemed to appreciate what I was offering. Somehow, she ended up curled into me, both of us lying on the couch, her where I always felt she belonged, wrapped in my arms.
I’d never experienced the level of pain she was in, and I had nothing to offer her but the warmth of my embrace and a shoulder to cry on. Physically, it was the closest we’d ever been, and I took a little bit of pride in knowing that when she was hurting, I was the one she sought out. My arms offered her what she was needing at the lowest point in her life.
It had been a while since we chatted in person because we were attending different colleges, but I was there when she needed me. I could be her rock as long as it took, even though I was aching inside to make her forget.
When she pulled back that night on the sofa, she didn’t go far.
“I’m so sorry she’s gone,” I told her, feeling like an idiot for not coming up with something a little more noteworthy in the moment. But I was young and stupid and nothing I said at that age was very poignant.
Her eyes dropped to my mouth as I spoke, and my body responded the very same way it always did when she was near. It was uncontrollable, the erection growing in my jeans. I don’t know for sure if she could feel it, but at the same time, I wondered how she couldn’t.
She swallowed, licking her lips, and my hormone-riddled brain took that as an invitation. I pressed my lips to hers, my head celebrating, finally getting the girl of my dreams.
I’ve relived that moment over and over for more than a decade. She didn’t pull back immediately. Her tongue swiped over mine twice, and embarrassingly, I nearly made a mess in my jeans at the sensations rushing through my body.
I moaned in pleasure, in celebration for all my dreams coming true, and that’s when things took a turn.
She pulled her face back from mine, sitting up as alarming tears still streamed down her face, with a look of betrayal in her eyes.
“Kit, no,” she’d whispered, the back of her hand lifting to wipe me from her lips. She couldn’t even make eye contact with me. “Why would you do that?”
I had no words, no explanation. The look in her eyes didn’t allow for a confession. I couldn’t tell her I loved her and that if she’d only given me a chance, I could be everything she needed in a man.
I was nineteen. Although I thought it at the time, I wasn’t even a man yet myself. I had nothing real to offer her. She was graduating from college in a few months, and I still had three years to go.
Maybe if she had just left it at that, things would be different.
“You’re Beth’s little brother. That wasn’t appropriate.”
She crushed me. I’d had people spit insults at me, assholes tell me that I’d never amount to anything, but this girl crushed me with less.
All I could do was nod at her as I stood from the sofa.
“Sorry.” I remember muttering that word before walking away from her. I remember wanting to say so much more, but I was broken at her rejection.
The next morning she acted like nothing happened. She acted like she didn’t spend hours in my arms. She acted like I didn’t put myself out there only to get tossed aside.
Two weeks later I quit college and joined the Army. Seeing her on weekends wasn’t possible. She broke my heart without even knowing it.
The distance between us was immediate, both physically because of my enlistment, but also emotionally. The texts stopped that night, and it felt like a sign. Jules and I were never going to happen, and I just needed to accept it and move on. And I did, in a sense. I spent eight years in the military, seeing the world, having one adventure after the other, but my need for her never waned. I looked for her in every woman I saw, in every woman I touched, from that point forward. Eventually, I realized that there’s no one that compares to her, despite the broken heart I was left with. Putting my energy into someone who I could never love was a waste of time and effort. I broke a couple of hearts myself along the way, and that made me feel like shit, so I just stopped trying to find happiness in someone else. Those people couldn’t help that they weren’t her.