SWNOVELS Coast to Coast: Chapter 27
Lying in bed, I roll over again for probably the fiftieth time. Things between Simon and I have been strained and awkward, but today has been exceptionally different. I spent the evening alone, ate dinner alone, and was now going to bed alone. I had been going to bed alone all week, but Simon was here every night when I went to sleep.
Now I was lying in bed in an empty apartment in a strange city.
He texted me earlier, around the time he should have been back from hockey camp, and told me he was going to be going out with some of the guys and not to wait up for him. My heart sank the minute I read the message. There was such an indifference in his words. I know that tone can easily be misinterpreted through text, but it was so short and to the point.
I was the one who put this wedge between us but my fear made it seem valid. There were too many variables about the future. I know I came here to be on this journey of self-discovery with no plan. I don’t know if I can continue that after this summer. Whatever this is between Simon and I can’t continue when I go back to California.
Either we come together as one or we’re going to need to go our separate ways.
Grabbing my phone from the nightstand, I check the time and see that it’s already close to eleven o’clock at night. Simon’s camp ended at four, but they had their draft today afterward. He texted me around five-thirty, which is when he told me he’d be back when he left this morning.
I scroll through my messages again to see if there is anything from Simon, but there isn’t. I end up on Instagram, checking his account to see if he happened to add anything to his story. There’s nothing. I check Snapchat. Nothing.
Simon was never really one to post often or share anything in his stories, but I thought it was worth a shot. Just as I go to lock my screen and set my phone back on the nightstand, I hear the lock turning on the front door to our apartment.
There’s a loud commotion and the door slams shut. Something clatters onto the ground, followed by the sound of keys hitting the floor.
“Fuck,” Simon slurs from the door. I slowly sit up, flicking on the light as I see him bending over to pick up the stuff he dropped. He sways as he stands upright again and stumbles over his own feet as he reaches the counter before setting his things down.
He whips his head over to look at me, his eyes bloodshot and glossy. “You’re still up.”
“I am,” I respond, my voice calm and collected even though I want to walk over to him and shake him. “Did you drive here?”
Simon shakes his head. “No, I left my car at the rink and rode to the bar with Liam. I think I got an Uber here. Or someone brought me here. I don’t fucking know.”
I’ve never seen him drunk and in this state before. It’s strange and equally frustrating. He’s not his happy self like he normally would be. Even though things have been tense between us, he had still been pleasant to be around up until this moment.
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t drive,” I tell him, not quite sure what else to say. “Why don’t you get comfortable on the couch and I’ll get you some water?”
Simon ignores me and makes his way to the fridge before he pulls out a beer. “I don’t want any water.”
I slowly begin to climb out of bed and my footsteps are light against the floor as I pad over to him. “Simon, you’re already wasted. You need to sleep it off.”
“And you need to back the fuck off,” he sneers, slurring his words together as he twists off the cap to the beer and takes a swig. “What I do doesn’t concern you anymore, Stella.”
“Why would you say that?’ I stare at him, hurt and confused. “Everything you do concerns me.”
Simon sets his beer down and turns his body away from mine. “Just stop fucking lying already. Please, just save the bullshit. I know what you’re doing.”
His words are like a knife to my heart. “What are you talking about?”
“You don’t want me. You’re trying to buy yourself time to let me down easy.” He turns his head back to look at me again. His eyes are wild and bloodshot. “Just do it already, angel. Break my heart now instead of prolonging the inevitable.”
“None of that is true, Simon,” I assure him, taking a chance as I make my way closer to him. “That’s not true at all. I said I needed space because I need to think this through. You know the way our futures are going and I need things to align.”
Simon lets out a harsh laugh as he grabs the beer and pushes off the counter. He stumbles in my direction, catching himself on the other side of the counter. “Things will never align, Stella. You either make it work or you don’t. People make sacrifices and that’s how shit works. Clearly, you don’t want to be the one who has to make any.”
It feels like he’s twisting the knife, pushing it farther into my heart. “I never said I don’t want to make any sacrifices. I just need to know that it’s worth the risk in the end.”
“Stella, do you hear yourself? You need to know that it’s going to be worth it in the end? How the hell can anyone know that? No one can predict the future and if you live your life that way, then you’re not really fucking living.”
His words hurt. I know there’s truth behind them but I can’t help but feel extremely upset by what he’s saying to me. The thing is, I don’t let myself display emotion in front of other people when I’m upset. Simon isn’t going to see that he’s hurting me with his words. Instead, I use anger as a buffer for my emotions. It’s a nice cover-up for how I’m actually feeling.
So, that’s what Simon is going to get.
He won’t see that I’m upset. He’s going to see that I’m pissed off and irate.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Simon?”
He tilts his head to the side and leans against the counter with most of his weight. “Absolutely nothing.” He smirks. “Most people don’t like hearing the truth, so I’m sorry it hurts, angel. It hurts me too.”
“Fuck you. It doesn’t hurt you. You’re wasted and completely out of pocket right now. You’re talking out of your ass like you have an idea about what you’re saying.”
“You’re wrong,” he argues as he pushes himself upright. “I mean partially. I am wasted, but I know exactly what I’m talking about. I really have no right to be mad at you for it. I agreed to it from the start, but that was before I fell in love with you.”
My breath catches in my throat as his six words linger in the air between us. Simon drains the rest of his beer and stumbles through the living room until he successfully lands on the couch. He’s fully clothed and still has his shoes on as he rolls onto his back.
“I was never supposed to love you, I know,” he continues with absolutely nothing holding him back. “That was my fuckup. If I could unlove you, I would. It never occurred to me that you wouldn’t want to be with me. I thought I could make you love me back, but I was fucking wrong.”
I’m literally frozen in place, my feet are cemented to the floor. I stare at Simon who isn’t even looking at me. He’s staring up at the ceiling, struggling to keep his eyes open from how drunk he is.
“You know, some girl approached me at the bar. I could have gone home with her tonight, but I didn’t.” He pauses as he kicks his shoes off. “I turned her down as soon as she came over because all I could fucking think about was you.”
My heart crawls into my throat and I can’t fight the tears as they spill from my eyes. The room is too dark, even with the bedside light on. Simon can’t see my face, he can’t see my emotions pouring out as they stream down my cheeks.
“I never once gave you a reason not to trust me,” he says quietly, still slurring his words. “I know your ex cheated on you, but that doesn’t mean I will. It’s like you think I’m going to be just like him and that fucking hurts, angel. I’m not him and you never even gave me a chance to show you that I’m not.”
“Simon…” I start, my voice cracking before trailing off.
He doesn’t hear me.
“Maybe it is better if you just go back to California.”
Everything stops. The world around me stops moving. Time is suspended and it feels like I’m suffocating. Somewhere after the words came out of his mouth, the oxygen dissipated from the room around us and I suddenly can’t breathe.
But I don’t make a move. I don’t make a sound. I just stand there and stare at him in disbelief, feeling my heart as he rips it directly from my chest.
He’s got all of this wrong. He’s drunk and the things he’s saying are things he wouldn’t normally say if he were sober, but that’s where the issue lies. There’s a saying that a drunken mind speaks a sober heart.
He admitted that he’s in love with me, only to turn around and tell me I should leave in the next breath. It’s like whiplash, which I’m sure is what it had felt like I was giving him by saying that I wanted space, when in reality, I don’t know what I really want or wanted.
“Is that what you want?” I ask him, my words a far whisper as I don’t fully trust my voice. Everything feels and sounds foreign. It’s like this is a bad dream and I just want to wake up from it.
Simon yawns and rubs his eyes. “It would make the most sense, don’t you think? You want space and space means you don’t want me. California is where you’re going to go when you remove yourself from my life, so why not just do it now? Rip off the fucking Band-Aid and leave me in your rearview mirror.”
“If you want me to leave, I will go.”
Simon waves his arm at me dismissively as he rolls onto his side, curling up in the fetal position. “Do whatever the fuck you want, Stella. You were going to do that from the start anyways.”
He falls silent and I don’t push any harder. He’s drunk so I should take what he’s saying with a grain of salt. I should just crawl back into bed and let him sleep it off and reevaluate in the morning, but I can’t. I can’t fucking do it.
My chest aches and there’s a hole in the shape of Simon there. He ripped my heart from my chest, clutching it in his hand while it was beating, before he tore it to shreds and discarded it on the floor.
I’m struggling with my feelings and how to separate my emotions in a rational way. It doesn’t take me long to pack my things and change into a pair of sweatpants and pull a hoodie over my t-shirt. Grabbing my phone, I open up the Uber app and put in the address of the airport as my destination.
I have nowhere to go in California right now. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to get a flight tonight, but I know that I can’t stay here any longer. There’s no place for me here. I overstayed my welcome and pushed Simon to the point that he’s doing exactly what he said he wouldn’t do. He’s letting me go, and I don’t know if he even realizes it.
He’s passed out, snoring lightly as I look over at him once more through my tears. I leave him behind, leaving the key I was using on the counter next to his before I let myself out of the apartment. When I reach the first floor, my Uber is already here and there’s no turning back at this point.
I asked him for space and he’s giving me thousands of miles of distance instead. The tears don’t stop as I climb into the Uber and thankfully, my driver doesn’t ask me what’s wrong.
Simon said he wasn’t Trey, and he was right. He’s much worse than Trey ever was.
I never loved my ex-boyfriend.