Things were moving fast and a few times it looked his father was going to use every trick he had to get Gabe off, but magically Alex Carsten had stepped in and now Gabe was on an ankle monitor and being charged with not only aggravated assault but breaking and entering as well. I didn’t for one second think that was a favor my mother called in, but Rule and I were back to radio silence so I never called to ask him or to thank him. Of course the Davenport’s had the best defense lawyer in town on the payroll, but all signs pointed to a slam dunk for me so I tried to stay positive.
I was refusing to talk to either of my parents. In fact I hadn’t told either one of them I moved and I had changed my phone number within hours of leaving the hospital. The fact of the matter was I had nothing to say to either of them, all the things I had said to Rule held true for them as well. I deserved better and if they weren’t willing to give me the love I showed them without restrictions or demands then I didn’t want them in my life. I knew my mom was struggling with the fact that she had to be accountable for the fact that she ultimately is the one that let Gabe corner me alone, but like I told Rule the only person I blamed was Gabe. It was more important to me that she recognize that she should have never pushed him on me when I told her I was in love with someone else in the first place. If they couldn’t figure out how to love and appreciate me for me then I would make do without them.
Ayden and I were settling into a new routine and we both adored Cora. It was nice to be living in a house rather than an apartment and as each day went by it got a little easier to breathe around the hole in my chest where my heart had once been. It had only been two weeks but it felt like a lifespan we had been apart. This time faking it to make it was so much harder, maybe because I knew for real it was the end but there was no fake smiling, no pretending to glide through life. I was struggling and I was struggling hard. I missed him. I loved him. I couldn’t have him and it was killing me in an entirely different way than when I had loved him from afar without him knowing it. Cora was back to keeping all talk of work and the guys at bay but every now and then she would let something about him slip and every time it felt like a shard of glass in an open wound. It should have made me feel better that he didn’t sound like he was doing much better than me but it didn’t. We both deserved happiness, it just sucked that we couldn’t seem to find it together.
It was a couple days before Saint Patrick’s Day which not only fell on a weekend this year but also happened to be Rule’s birthday. The girls had decided that instead of sitting around being sullen and grousing about things that we needed to go out and have fun. I didn’t want to go, I mean I really didn’t want to go and not only because my face wasn’t entirely pretty again but because I didn’t think I could handle being in a crowd just yet. I was pretty sure it was going to be an awful time and that I was going to have zero fun but because I loved them I let them bagger me into agreeing to go and to my surprise after a few martinis at an out of the way lounge Cora knew about I relaxed and actually having a good time, strike that it was a fantastic time that I totally needed. Getting up for school the next morning was awful and I was tempted to skip but I had missed so much because of the attack that I couldn’t afford to.
I was standing in front of the mirror doing my hair and trying in vain to cover up the yellowish remnant of my black eye when I had a startling revelation. Loving Rule had never been easy, it was always hard and painful and the payoff had been years coming, but I had never decided he wasn’t worth it. To me loving him had never been a choice, it was just something I had decided was inevitable, just like I had decided him ever coming to care about me was never going to happen. Last night I had been so sure I wouldn’t have any fun, that going out was going to be miserable and awful but after doing it I had a blast and it was totally worth the risk and harassing I had suffered to get me to go. I had done what I swore I never would, I had walked away because there was no guarantee in the end, no guaranteed happy ending for us.
I set my curling iron down on the sink and stared at myself in the mirror all the sadness and missing part of myself clear in the reflection staring back at me. Rule was the one thing I had always wanted and when it got hard to hold onto him I had just let go rather than fight to keep ahold of him and that wasn’t right. I deserved love but I also deserved him and whatever form that his love came in. Rule wasn’t a normal guy, there was never going to be hearts and flowers or poetry flowing with words that made me blush, what there was always going to be was give and take, ups and downs and a passion that burned both of us to the core. When he asked me at the hospital ‘what if” my answer should have been if you’re asking you already do because I knew it now, could see it as clearly as I could see my own face in the mirror, Rule loved me he just didn’t know that’s what it was. Neither one of us really had shining examples of healthy loving relationships to draw from but the second he had told me he wanted to try I should have known he was falling in love with me. He never tried for anyone.
Someone knocked on the bathroom door and Ayden popped her head in the room. “We have to head out soon are you almost ready?”
Considering I only had the right side of my head curled I think the answer was obvious. I turned to her with huge eyes. “We need to go dress shopping after school.”
She propped a hip in the doorway and lifted a dark eyebrow at me. “Any particular reason why?”
“Rule’s birthday is this weekend.”
“Cora might’ve mentioned that.”
“He’s gotta be having a birthday party.”
“She might’ve mentioned something about that as well.”
“Well we have to go.”
“Why? I thought you were done with all that noise or is this martinis from last night talking?”
I shook my head and picked the curling iron back up. “I have to give him a present.”
“Oh yeah? What if he’s there with someone?”
I cut her a look. That possibility hadn’t even occurred to me. “Is that likely?”
She muttered something under her breath and brushed her long bangs out of her face. “No. Cora said he’s been pretty much a hermit since you guys split, that and his temper is on fire so everyone that doesn’t want to be flayed alive is pretty much staying the hell out of his way. What are you planning on giving him anyway?”
“The only thing I think he wants.”