I tell them everything. To say they are furious would be an understatement. They are downright enraged!

Bea is about to call Jake when I stop her telling her to leave him be. Abby offers to go to Philadelphia and castrate him. I, of course, refuse. I assure them that I'm okay, that I'll be okay, but I'm not so sure anymore. There is a gaping hole in my body right where my heart was once. I feel empty. I feel heartbroken. I feel myself retreating back to my shell. The one I tried so hard to get out after Marcus. I failed us. 'I love you'. The damage these three words could do. If I knew, I wouldn't have said them.

To waver the attention from myself, I stir the conversation over to Bea and her pregnancy, I ask her when did she found out and she replies 1 week before. I squeal and hug her congratulating her. Then all pf a sudden I burst into tears on her shoulders, crying at my misery, crying for my non-existent relationship to which I didn't even get the chance to prove that it could be something much better. I cry because even after all this and heartache he gave me, I miss him and I still love him.

Bea and Abby rub my back soothingly murmuring sweet nothings into my ears, trying to take away my pain. Abby joins in on the hug and we three hug each other tightly.

“I call the shots on being the godmother.” I say sniffling, my voice groggy from all the crying. Abby groans but seeing my state gives up fighting for godmother's position.

Bea just laughs at us. “You both will be the godmother to my baby.”

Abby and I squeal and high-five each other. We talk some more and once they are sure I'm properly fed and told them everything and that I'm doing okay they decide to leave.

They both kiss my forehead and ordered me to take rest before walking out the door.

“What is he doing right now?” I wonder to myself. My hand goes to the pendant, unconsciously.

Days go by and there's still no sign of Jake. No calls. No texts. Nothing. It's like he's gone AWOL because of my confession. I spend my new year drowning in my heartache. Everyone is trying to cheer me up and I am pretending to be okay in front of them. But deep down I know that I'm far from okay. I have stopped eating properly as I don't have an appetite anymore. A woman who once loved food won't eat anything because of the side affects of the pain coursing through my battered and bruised heart. Pitiful. I couldn't function properly. All I know is that I miss him so much. And I'm slowly dying from the inside as if the world has come to an end. It has. Hasn't it? He was my world and I condemned it to doomsday through my confession. Now I have to deal with the repercussions. The only solace that I could find is in sleeping. I sleep away my depressive and overbearing thoughts. I sleep away all of my pain, crying myself to sleep every night. There are huge bags under my eyes and no energy in my body, thanks to my ever lacking appetite.

To say the least I have become the live-action version of the walking dead.

I keep counting each day waiting for it to end already to start a new one with no enthusiasm. The cycle repeats for two weeks. I could tell that everyone os worried about me but I don't feel like talking to anyone and I just spend all of my time away from them, hiding in my room. With every day that goes by, my yearning for Jake increases more and more, causing me to miss him so much more and my crying starts all over again. I keep waiting for his calls, texts, anything, but nothing comes by.

Then one day I think, I can't live like this. I can't do this to myself.

So after over two whole weeks of waiting, pitying and reprimanding myself I decide to get up. What am I doing with my life? I can't waste it like that. Not over some guy. But that's Jake. Your Jake. Not just "some guy". Shut up!

Gaining back my resolve I get out of my room that I had isolated myself into. Freya also called. She must've learnt from Jake or from my sudden absence would've made her question. I didn't even get to say goodbye to her. She called me and we talked. She asked me about everything and I tell her. I don't give away the state of mind I'm in, keeping the conversation as cheery as possible. She then apologised to me that she might've asked Jake that night that if he said it back to you. She texted him to know the details as I wasn't picking my phone.

That's how he got to know. She kept apologising profusely to me but I assured her that it wasn't her fault. If she had or hadn't, the result would've been the same. I was meaning to tell him myself and he would've reacted the same. We talked for a short while, I heard his voice in the back, calling out to her. He sounded... okay? She hung up on me. That was the last time I got to hear his voice.

I step out of the apartment in the cool, breezy air in such a long time that I feel a sense of freedom. I go for a run to get rid of the little bit of the vampire tan I have acquired by spending my time indoors. When I come back I find Abby sitting on the couch. She takes a double take where I am standing, her mouth drops open in shock. “Are you an apparition or are you actually here, out of your room?”

I roll my eyes at her and hit the back of her head, “Do you believe me I'm real now, dumbass?”

She glares at me, “Bitch.”, and sticks out her tongue at me. I used to do that with Jake. No! Stop.

I walk over to her and hug my bestie 2.0, my weird ass red tornado, in need of extracting some strength from her. Bea and Abby, they both are my support pillars. I cannot imagine what I would've done without them. They kept me from stumbling and falling. They both are my rocks whom I can always rely on.

She rubs my back as she suggests something hilarious, “Let's become lesbians. We'll have each other. We'll love each other to infinity which we already do. We won't have to deal with men and their bipolar asses anymore, oh and not to mention but the sex between us would be bomb af.” I pull away and stare at her blankly while she gives me a matching look before we both burst out into maniacal laughter.

“I love you, Abby.” I mutter once our laughter finally subsides.

“I love you too, Roxy. We all do. I'm glad you're out of that place and taking back charge of your life. I'm proud of you.” She smiles at me.

I freshen up and we decide to watch our comfort movie, Dirty Dancing, while stuffing our faces with popcorn like pigs. I am finally feeling much better than before. I am expecting that things will settle down but what I wasn't expecting was to see Jake's name appear on the screen of my phone after that night. How ironic. When I finally decided to piece myself back together, he decides to call me. I ignore his calls. I want to talk to him, to hear his voice once again, but I'm not ready yet.  Until I can't start loving myself once again, I can't talk to him.

Don't let any man second guess your worth. Don't let any man make you feel like shit. And sure as hell don't let any man step over you and walk away, only for him to come back.

★★★★★

It's been a few weeks since I decided to get my life back on track. I feel better than before but not completely. There's still an empty void inside me and I know who can fill that space up and make me whole again. I've been ignoring his calls, his texts and all his attempts. He has been calling me non-stop. I only read his initial texts, saying how much he is missing me and he is sorry, asking me for forgiveness and that he has something to tell me. I stopped reading them after a while. He cannot just start talking to me like nothing happened. He literally just threw me away too afraid to face his own demons and fight for us. I was willing to fight for us but he didn't care and ended up things between us just like that as if all those things and everything we did together was all a pretense.

I decide to stop my thoughts wondering off to him.

Matt calls me asking me if he could visit me as he needs some advice. I ask him to come over. Elle is spending the day with Abby today. I'm alone in my apartment so I'm gathering all the ingredients I'll need to bake Elle's favourite cookies, she asked me to and I couldn't refuse that cute little face of hers. So here I am. A knock in the door pulls me out from my focus and I go over to open the door. Matt is standing there with beautiful yellow roses in his hands. He offers me the flowers and I smile at him thanking him for the beautiful flowers. We walk to the kitchen and I start arranging the flowers in a vase.

“So what did you want to talk about?” I ask him curiously.

“Umm it's about... about Abby.” He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. I immediately sit alert.

“Is something wrong? Is she in danger?” I ask, slightly panicking.

“No. I mean yes. Yeah. Everything's okay. I wanted to ask if...” he is cut off by loud, incessant knocking on my door. What the fuck! Who is banging on my door like a lunatic? I throw the door open only to see a disheveled looking Jake, standing in front of me. I stay rooted to my spot due to shock.

He looks up at me and his face contorts painfully looking at me, his eyes full of guilt and remorse.

“Umm... Hi!” He begins awkwardly.

My demeanor instantly turns cold, my reserved self coming out. “What are you doing here?”

He winces at my tone. “I came here to ask for your apology. I'm here to win you back.”

I just give him a blank stare. He knows that I'm not going to reply so he continues, “Can I come in?”

Before I could deny it not wanting to deal with him just yet, Matt's voice interrupts us. “Who is it, Roxy?”

Matt comes to stand by the door besides me and when he sees Jake standing there his posture becomes rigid and his stance protective. I place a hand on his arm, “Relax Matt. He is just here to "talk". He won't hurt me. Not more than he already has. I hope.” I mutter the last part under my breath and from the corner of my eyes I see that Jake heard my remark, because his face falls.

“Matt.” Jake gives him an acknowledging nod.

“Jake.” Matt does the same. I roll my eyes at them. Men.

They are squaring each other up as if they'll start pummeling each other right here, right now. Matt's reaction, I get it. He is just a protective friend as he and Derek forced it out of me, cornering me one day, about what happened to me. Derek wanted to shoot Jake and Matt agreed to help him. So yeah, he knows.

“Alright, Alpha males, break it off. And you can come inside or stay outside, it's upto you.” I tell Jake, still beyond pissed at him for showing here after all this time.

He steps inside and I close the door, turning my back on him, saying a prayer to heaven trying to gather my nerves. He still has the same effect on me. Even after he broke my heart, it still races fast, just for him.

“Why are you here Jake?” I ask him finally turning around.

“I'm here because I love you!” He says without missing a beat.

What!? My world stops spinning for a whole damn minute at his words.

Am I hearing things?

*************

A/N: He is back! He really is back!

'Kay Imma stop now! 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

But jokes aside, Jake is back and he said the three words and that too very abruptly. 👀👀

How will Roxy react? Wait for the next chapter to find out! ✨

Please vote, comment and share!!

Until next time,
Love
S❤️