Flutter (The Discover Series) (44 page)

I continued trying not to show how completely devastated I was at his unwillingness not to fight for me.

Suck it up Sara
, I told myself.

“Trying to convince myself that we can just be friends is a big fat lie and I can’t do this to Scott anymore. It’s not fair to any of us to play these games.” He wasn’t looking at me and he just nodded. I started to get angry at his sudden aloofness. “You don’t have anything to say?”

Placing both hands outstretched against the wall, he dropped his head between his shoulders.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen. I should have listened to you when you said you had a boyfriend, but I was playing with fire, too, Sara.” Turning his head he finally looked at me. “I was looking for you, too. After last night, I was going to leave you alone, but when I saw you I just wanted a few more minutes with you. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“It’s funny how that works, isn’t it? The things we want and don’t want.”

There was nothing more I could say, there was nothing
left to say
. The decision had been made for me and I had been wrong.

“Goodbye Adan.”

I had
chosen
wrong.

Work was the last place I wanted to be right now.

I was trying desperately not to completely fall apart right now and I wasn’t doing a very good job at it. I sat behind the cash register, staring blankly out the store windows. I was only partially aware of the people walking by outside, reminding me life was still going on. I had been staring for so long at nothing that my vision had become blurred. We weren’t busy in the slightest today and that only made it harder for me to forget how this afternoon with Adan had ended.

I fiddled with the pen on the desk, absentmindedly rolling it back and forth beneath my fingers - it wasn’t a very good distraction. A good distraction wouldn’t have me constantly replaying my entire conversation with Adan over and over again inside my head, trying to make sense of everything that had been said between us. The pieces didn’t fit together and I felt frustrated by the whole thing and just wanted to scream. I felt like I was in mourning over the loss of something I never really had. The urge to have a complete meltdown had me on edge and I felt like I was going to combust under the pressure.

My anger got the best of me and I roughly pushed the pen out from under my fingers and it went flying across the floor, hitting the wood floor and bouncing into one of the big oak bookcases before ricocheting away. Closing my eyes and trying not to see Adan behind them was next to impossible and I roughly rubbed at the back of my eyelids hoping that would get rid of the image of his face. I had the feeling that anything less then the drastic measures of brain surgery would accomplish that, he was imprinted there for good.

Rubbing my fingers through my hair, I clawed at my scalp briefly before pulling my fingers the rest of the way through. With a big sigh I pushed myself out of the stool I had been sitting on, wincing slightly as the muscles in my butt complained, and walked around the desk to pick up the pen. My hair fell forward, framing the side of my face with a silk black curtain and my senses was instantly filled with the smell of Adan. Ugh, he was everywhere! I quickly stood up, grabbing my hair in a fist - I twisted it up and around until I had created a messy bun. Using the pen, I pushed it into the center of the bun, until I felt it secure my hair in place and ignored the few stray hairs that were pulled painfully from my scalp.

Forgetting about my seat behind the desk, I walked over to pick up a box of new books and decided that maybe I would have a better chance at keeping my thoughts away if I was preoccupied with alphabetizing the new shipment. Who could think about anything else when you had to repeat the alphabet over and over to remember if ‘J’ comes before ‘F’.

Who was I kidding?

I was about to walk
toward
the book case when I heard Maggie upstairs talking on the phone. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, she was talking in a hushed tone, but I could hear the tone of her voice and she sounded anxious. Whoever she was talking to, and whatever it was about, had Maggie distressed and that made me worry about her. Since I have started working here, I had never once seen Maggie upset over anything. She managed to keep her cool when it came to everything, including rude customers, wrong orders and damaged shipments. So hearing her upstairs left me to wonder what was wrong.

Not wanting to be caught attempting to eavesdrop on her conversations, I moved away from the winding staircase that led to the small loft above the book store that held her office. I would come up with a way to ask if everything was okay without giving away that I had been trying to listen to her call.

I moved to the center of the store, putting down the box and I pulled out one of the books and read the cover. After finding its correct spot, I pushed the other books aside and made room the other three that had been left inside the box. Grabbing the last three out of the box, I shoved them inside the empty spot and let go of the other books watching as the pages expanded closing up the small gabs between the books.

I knew this wasn’t going to take me long and I could already feel my thoughts creeping back to Adan from the lack of supervision on my part. I picked out another book and sought its rightful place. I looked at the cover, looked at it again a minute later and one more time when I realized that I still hadn’t paid attention to the title long enough to know where it went. Sighing, I leaned my head against the edge of one of the book shelves and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to hold on to every ounce of control I had to not completely lose it right here.

Everything seemed to ache – my heart, my head, and my body - but I didn’t see any relief in sight unless Adan appeared at my side right now with the answers I needed. I turned my head toward the door just to prove to myself that I wasn’t going to see him there any time soon. I knew he wasn’t coming and that realization alone almost had me throwing my arms up in defeat and giving up on the answers I needed just so I could be with him. However I didn’t see the logic in trading in some unhappiness just to gain a different kind of unhappiness, so I pushed the temptation away and focused on the books again.

I finished putting away the books in record time with only a few stray thoughts toward Adan. I pulled out the box cutter from one of the black pockets of my store uniform and broke down the box so I could put it away in the back. Coming back to the front, I dusted off the smut that was left on my hands from the box on my jeans and then slipped my hands into the back pockets. I stood in the middle of the store looking out the front window and watched as the last few late stragglers passed by the window on their way to another destination.

It was now dusk out and the stores would be getting ready to close soon leaving only the restaurants and bars open the town’s night life. I knew we would be getting ready to close soon and even though I had wanted to leave all afternoon, I quickly realized going home wasn’t going to be any better. Even though I felt every kind of tired and could probably sleep for days, I didn’t look forward to a night of nightmares or dreams of Adan. Maybe if I gave in and actually thought about it, I could gain some kind of closure, but I knew the odds of that happening were not in my favor. If I couldn’t gain closure, maybe I could gain some sort of understanding.

At this point I was willing to give it a try.

I didn’t know what had upset me the most – the actual lying part or not knowing why he was lying. I had thought I felt betrayed from all of Andres’ lies, but nothing compared to hearing Adan lie to me. Now I knew I wasn’t exactly a model of perfection and as of late telling a few of my own lies had been my signature move on most of the stuff I told Eli or Scott, but I convinced myself it was because of the lies Andres told that forced me to keep so many secrets.

What was Adan’s reason?

I had never expected him to lie to me when I finally confronted him about it. I could have sworn that it had almost been like he was giving me hints this whole time, waiting for me to see it, but when I finally caught on, something had spooked him and I had no idea what.

“Sara?”

I jumped, losing contact with my thoughts and being brought back to reality. I had been so zoned out that I hadn’t heard the bell on the door nor did I see Scott walk in right in front of me. He was hesitant to move into the store any closer so he hovered by the door, blocking the entrance.

I gave him a weak smile, “I’m sorry. I was-”

“Lost in thought.” He finished for me.

I made a sound that was suppose to resemble a laugh, but was a poor imitation. “Yeah.” Pulling my hands from my pocket, I moved
toward
the counter, resting my hip against the front. “How are you?” I asked politely and feeling silly about it.

He shrugged. “I’ve been better. You?”

“I’ve definitely been better.”

He looked sad. “I just came to apologize-”

“Scott you have nothing to-”

“Yes I do. Please let me finish Sara.” He took a step closer, but stopped realizing he was no longer touching the safety of escape.

“Okay
,”
I said motioning for him to finish.

“First
,
I wanted to apologize for the way I acted last night and the way I talked to you.”

It was killing me not to interrupt, but I held my tongue and let him finish.

“No matter what you were doing, I should have never treated you that way.”

“Thank you,” I said acknowledging his apology when he paused.

“I also want to apologize for not trusting you. You have never given me a reason not too and I should have been less accusing.”

I couldn’t listen to him apologize anymore. “I saw Adan today.” I blurted. He looked up at me, really looked at me, for the first time since he had walked into the store. I could tell he wasn’t sure how he should react the hearing that. There was a mixture of sadness and hope lingering. “I told him I couldn’t see him anymore.” I felt sick the minute the words were out and hated that that was my reaction.

Especially when I saw the flash of excitement banish away the doubt he had been holding on to. I didn’t need to tell him that I was picking him by default, the fact remained that I still had feelings for Scott. Maybe they weren’t the intense feelings I had – have- for Adan, but there was still a part of me that loved Scott.

He rushed to me without saying a word, scooping me up into his arms and lifting me off the floor. He nestled his face into the side of my neck. I could feel the warmth of his breath against my skin and the muscles of his body against mine and it felt wrong. The urge to push him away was so strong that I had to grip the fabric of his jacket to keep myself from following through.

I was no longer Scott’s.

I cursed myself, actually hating myself for thinking I could just forget about Adan and continue to be with Scott like nothing had changed. I had made things worse and that included continuing to lead Scott on even if I was no longer going to see Adan.

“I was so scared I had lost you,” he whispered against my neck.

I closed my eyes and a single tear escaped, falling down the side of my check and I quickly wiped it away before Scott could see the evidence of my heartbreak.

Once again I had chosen wrong.

“Was that Scott I just heard?”

My back had been facing the entry to Maggie’s office so I hadn’t seen her coming. I fought the tears that wanted to keep falling and tried to wipe away what had managed to slip away before she could see.

“Yes,” my voices wavered. “He just left though.” I cleared my voice and turned around forcing a smile.

Maggie was not one to be fooled.

She had stopped at the bottom of the staircase, holding on to the wrought iron banister. I avoided looking her in the face and it was the first time I had noticed the little dragonfly designs that had been twisted out of the steel.

“Do your tears have anything to do with a certain boy that was in here last night?”

“Would you believe me if I said I have no idea what your talking about?” I smiled at her and walked behind the counter to sit on the stool.

She stepped off the last step and came around to stand in front of the counter. “If that was the truth, yes I would believe you, but we both know that it’s not.”

I sighed. “Have you ever made a bad decision just to follow that up with an even worse one?”

She gave a sad laugh. “We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t make a couple of wrong decisions here and there, mija.” She reached over and lifted my chin so I was looking at her. “You are a beautiful, strong and very smart young women. Maybe you didn’t make the right decision now, but I know that you’ll find a way to fix it. Sometimes it takes a couple of tries before we get it right, that’s life. We live and we learn, the important part is that you listen to your heart. It will always tell you everything you need to know.”

I smiled at her, a genuine smile. “Thank you Maggie.”