Promises & Pen Names (The Riley Siblings #1)

11. Sidney

Chapter Eleven

SIDNEY

BLAKE: Really? Are you fucking kidding me?

BLAKE: You seriously just fucking LEFT?? Took a goddamn Uber and didn’t even wake me up to say goodbye??

BLAKE: What the fucking fuck, Sidney?

BLAKE: Answer me, damnit!

BLAKE: This is bullshit! I can’t believe you just left, fucking LEFT and flew back to Atlanta without so much as a middle finger! Goddamn bullshit!

BLAKE: If you didn’t want to be with me then you should have had the fucking balls to tell me to my face! Sneaking out of my house while I was in an orgasm-induced coma to catch a flight is fucking low, Sidney. It fucking hurts.

BLAKE: You were supposed to be my best friend, my goddamn girlfriend. We were supposed to make this work because we wanted that, because we hashed out EVERYTHING and we’re better for it but I guess I was the only one who wanted it. Got what you fucking needed and bailed, took the coward’s way out after closure and good dick.

BLAKE: I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry, Sid. I didn’t mean that. Just fucking talk to me, please.

BLAKE: We can work through this, what we have is special, it always has been. It brought us together twice now. It’s worth fucking fighting for so just talk to me. Please.

BLAKE: I’m not done with you, Sidney. I’ll never be done with you. You mean way too much to me.

BLAKE: Please just talk to me.

BLAKE: I miss you.

I scroll through his messages for the hundredth time, the rest of his texts the same. I miss you, I need you, you are everything to me, please talk to me. Blake texts me every day still, sends a combination of those words first thing in the morning and right before I put my phone on the charger for the night. Every day except today and hopefully—for him, not me—that means Blake has finally given up.

It’s been almost a month since I left Florida, almost a month since I did in fact take the coward’s way out. It was the only way though, the only way to leave Blake without telling him everything I wanted to tell him, without asking him the things I wanted to ask. If he’d have taken me to the airport like we planned I would have fallen apart, told him I was still so fucking in love with him and asked him to get on the plane with me. And he would have done it too.

So, I left.

I’ve ignored his countless text messages, sent his constant phone calls to voicemail. If it wasn’t for my kids, I would have just shut my phone off or changed my number, but I have to be available to them somehow, especially since I’m failing at being a mother now too.

Maybe that’s a little extreme.

My kids are still fed, clean, and have a roof over their heads. I’m still helping with homework, taking them to their various activities, attending whenever I need to. I smile, laugh, joke around, and hug them. It’s really no different than every other day for the last fourteen years. I’m even helping Sloane work through her boy problems but while I’m maybe not failing at motherhood or shortchanging my kids on love, saying things aren’t any different isn’t true.

It’s just that I’m different and trying like hell to keep them from noticing.

And that’s been hard as fuck because my kids are brilliant so I know they can see how fucking destroyed I am without actually witnessing it first-hand.

Not to mention I wound up taking all of my accrued vacation and sick days when I got back to Atlanta, so this will be my first day back to work since before spring break.

My first day back and I’m already going to be late because I keep rereading all of Blake’s texts and crying quietly while my body refuses to move from my bed.

Thankfully the kids were at Jordan’s this past weekend and even though he’s a jerk, he knows something is wrong with me and offered to keep them two extra nights so I could get ready in peace this morning.

Too bad I haven’t slept in days and after my appointment yesterday, I probably won’t ever sleep again .

With a watery sigh, I close out our silent thread and force myself to get up. I head down the hall like I’m marching to the executioner’s block and go straight for the only bathroom in my house to get in the shower.

My routine has gone to complete shit on top of everything else.

I can’t stomach much of anything, coffee included, so the only food I’ll eat today will be dinner with my kids when they come home and trying for anything else is just asking for vomit to happen during the surprise pop quiz my classes are getting.

I haven’t done yoga since Florida, haven’t tried doing any of the things I used to do to keep myself in some kind of shape and I’d probably be more upset about it if I wasn’t losing so much goddamn weight.

Something else I need to be better about now.

Instead of singing in the shower, I cry. I don’t read or write anymore during my quiet time and honestly that’s another huge problem.

I put off the release of The Vampire King’s Bride because I couldn't get into it at all, couldn’t even send out ARCs because I now believe everything I’ve ever written is total crap. I’ve been totally silent on all of my social media for Harper King and because I’m such a miserable broken piece of trash, I can’t even bring myself to respond to my loyal fans who are messaging me non-stop with their concern for my well-being.

And I know Blake postponed the release of our book as well. Probably because he’s trying to figure out how to edit out everything I wrote.

Not only did I walk away from the love of my life, I flushed my hopeful career down the toilet too.

I’m fucking awesome.