Chapter | Twenty Five

I was shitfaced drunk. The rest of the weekend I drank like I never had before, I ignored Clara and Taron. I stayed over at Serena's and continued working at the bar with Thomas.

Serena had offered it even without knowing what had happened, she knew I needed another place to stay. So for the entire weekend we got drunk at work and I went to Serena's to sleep it off every night.

Everything had changed, everything was much darker and colder, nothing was cheering me up. I was just broken and devastated, trying to cope with the fact that my boyfriend had lied to me about who he was for ten months in total. From the time I met him to now.

I groaned as I turned on my side, wincing in pain when my shoulder hurt like hell. I slowly opened my eyes and looked around the dark apartment.

I sighed as I remembered where I was and slowly I sat up, clenching my shoulder. The pain shot up and down my entire arm. What the hell happened last night?

I glanced at my phone and saw more missed calls from Clara, none from Taron. Oh, Clara...

Suddenly flashes of last night entered my head as I recalled the events. Oh, we got into a fight. Clara had showed up and I was shitfaced drunk when she approached me.

We were shouting at each other, I blamed her for letting me fall for Taron when she knew who he was and participated in keeping it from me. She went along with his lies.

I remember a drunk guy interfering with the fight, claiming he wanted to see us fight in a mud bath in bikinis. Why he thought of that when watching us argue, I didn't know.

I cussed him out as well as Clara did with disgust on her face. He started to get closer and Clara shoved him back, he had pushed her back into a table and chairs, which made me punch the fucker in the face as I defended her.

She might've lied and I might've called her a bitch, but she was my bitch. Nobody touches her or any of my friends like that. Plus I was a little tired of everyone and everything.

I then remembered that he had shoved me down the small staircase and that's why my shoulder hurt, I landed right on it. 

I sighed and got up from the couch, noticing I was only in my underwear. I didn't give a fuck, I continued my way to Serena's kitchen and found her pain killers before downing two. I then winced as I started to move my shoulder and massage it.

Everything was a mess. It wasn't me to get this drunk or to get into fights, it wasn't who I wanted to be either. I was ready to settle down and get serious. I didn't fear it when I was with Taron, I always feared it in other relationships, but fuck Taron had done something to me. I couldn't believe that of all the people I've dated, Taron was the one who made me want to settle down and start something serious yet it was the guy who might've hurt me the most.

It felt surreal. This was never supposed to happen. We were supposed to be happy, we were supposed to be truthful to each other. We were supposed to be together.

I felt it in my bones, I had never been so sure of anything in my entire life. But now, I didn't even know. Where would I go from here? Where would we go from here?

Taron was still my neighbor, I couldn't escape him, he would still be everywhere. I would still see him at one point or another in the building. I hated it.

I hated the thought of Taron and I walking past each other like strangers in the hall, it made my gut wrench in pain of the mere thought. I knew then that I wouldn't be able to do it.

I couldn't stay in that building. Not with him next door, before I knew it, I was typing away on my phone, finding apartments or hell even houses for rent.

I needed to escape and the only way I could do that was move. Otherwise I would torture myself everyday. I quickly found a cheap apartment thirty minutes from my current apartment, so I booked a meeting to see the apartment.

Once it had been confirmed, I dropped my phone in my lap. Tears started falling like a waterfall, I wasn't able to stop. I cried, I cried for hours.

I tried to be quiet as Serena was still sleeping, she was always the type to sleep till noon when she had been drinking, so I wasn't really that worried about waking her up, there was a slim chance that would happen.

I sobbed and cried until I passed out. My mind wandered to my moments with Taron, the roadtrips, the dates, the sex, the talks. Everything. It all circled back as to how I didn't see it.

How I hadn't figured it out sooner. I remembered New Years and it all made sense, his weird behavior, the panic of me leaving him. The desperation for physical touch these last months after New Years had been higher than before.

It all made sense now. That guy–his friend that had called him Taron Egerton, his name. He knew then that I had heard it and that it was just a matter of time before the inevitable happened, Taron knew it. That's why he so often just held me, kissed me and hugged me closer than ever.

He had practically moved into my apartment to spend as much time with me as he could, I just thought it was because of his work, now I see that it was because we had limited time to the outburst.

Maybe it was also the reason we stayed at my apartment the most, whenever I came over, it was quick and I barely had time to take it in. Maybe he hid clues of his real identity whenever I was coming over, maybe he did go to extreme lengths to give us more time.

It made my heart swell and hurt at the same time. The fact that he knew that we had limited time, made me realize that he had maybe loved me as much as he said, why else would he have been so selfish? I didn't have it in me to blame him for the selfishness, I wouldn't have acted differently, but then again–I never would've lied to someone about who I was.

That was the difference between Taron and I, I valued honesty over lies any day. I told him this a million times, I don't do lying in a relationship. He knew what I'd dealt with in my past relationships, I had been open about everything. Yet he seemed to be the one to have broken my heart and trust like no other.

I never would've seen it coming. I never expected it from Taron of all people, the guy was a human golden retriever, for fucks sake. I never knew he could be a liar, and a good one at that.

I got dressed when it was eight in the evening, Serena and I had eaten a late dinner and then I'd left her house. I was prepared to go home and get some clothes.  To shower and start over with myself, I needed to put the drinking away, that wasn't me and heartbreak or not, I didn't want it to be me.

I walked the entire way home, I needed the cold air. I needed a slap into reality, I was alone and heartbroken, that's what I was.

My mind was all over the place, fear that Taron would be in my apartment when I returned, hit me. He had a key. I had given him one right after New Years.

When we laid in bed on a cold January morning, naked and cuddled up in each other's arms sleeping peacefully.

Taron stirred in his sleep and I smiled as I looked down at him. His head was resting on my breasts, I bit my lip a little to not smile too wide like an idiot. I glanced over at the small box I had saved, it stood on my nightstand, ready to give him the box with the key inside.

"What are you thinking about?" Taron asked, his voice hoarse and rough as he blinked his eyes and looked up at me.

I smiled and took this as my chance to give him the box. "I wanted to give you something" I half whispered and he smiled and pulled himself up on his elbows and gave me more room to move.

I grabbed the box from my nightstand and settled underneath his body once again. "Open it" I encouraged him. He smiled and pecked my lips without having seen what was in it yet. "You are the cutest" he said before opening the box, he smiled at me and held the key up between us.

"I love you" Our lips sealed and I finally snapped back to reality as I arrived at my apartment building. It was dark and seemed hollow and empty, the lights in his window were on, so that wasn't the case. I slowly made my way up the stairs and approached my door.