I didn't stick around to ask what she meant by that. Finding my way back to the counter I was already ringing her up with hope that she'd be on her way and fast. The euphoric buzz I'd been feeling since the moment I climbed out of bed with Wyatt this morning was long gone. Replaced with annoyance and irritation I just wanted the source to disappear.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Wyatt
* * *
I stepped outside the front door of the station and froze when I’d seen Karlie leaning against the side of her car. The same car that I’d bought her and finished paying for after she’d left. It was just one of the many things I’d been stuck handling after she moved out of the small place we’d shared.
Standing tall, she held the strap of her purse and I could sense she was nervous.
“Hey Wyatt,” she said, taking a step in my direction. I remained where I was. I didn’t want to be an ass, but how many times did one have to tell another that they had nothing to say to them before they accepted it?
“It looks like I’m gonna be sticking around for a while.” Karlie worried her lip liked I’d seen her do so many times before. The way she would bite it over and over, slowly releasing it. “Gram’s cancers is back.” Karlie’s grandmother was all she had left. She’d never known her father and her mother died in an accident the year after we’d graduated high school. She’d always been closer to her grandmother than her own mother and I knew that this news had to be hard on her. Lois was honestly all Karlie had left.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Dismissing her felt wrong, because I could see the sadness in her eyes. But I also knew my limits with Karlie, and I knew that she’d do anything or say anything she could to get her way.
“I know you don’t want to hear it, and I know that no matter what I say it will never change what I did, but I am sorry Wyatt.” Looking down at her feet I could visibly see her chest rise and fall with a deep breath. “You loved me once.”
Did I? I mean did I truly love her or just the idea of her?
“I know that what I did was unforgivable,” lifting her gaze once more her eyes locked on mine. “I don’t know what I’m asking Wyatt, but I know that I miss you.”
“Karlie—,”
“I know, you don’t have to say it,” a tear escaped her eye and ran over her cheek. “I just wanted you to know that I regret the way things turned out with us. I honestly could have had an amazing life and I messed it up.”
What do I tell her?
Should I say, yes, you did and now you can leave?
“I wish more than anything that I could go back and change what happened.”
“But you can’t.” I’m not sure I felt the same. Going back would have meant that what I have with Sadie didn’t exist and frankly I’m a better man now that I am with her. She makes me happy, happier than I ever was with Karlie. “It’s time to move on.”
Karlie bites on her inner lip, looking away from me trying to hide her tears. “What if I can’t? What if my life without you doesn’t make sense?”
“You have to,” I replied. This was all part of her act. Karlie was dramatic, she always had been.
She move in quick, pressing her palm to the center of my chest and my reaction was to step back. Bumping my hip into the railing leading down from the front door of the station I reached out to stable myself.
“What if we tried again?” Was she fucking crazy? “What if what happened only made us closer now, almost like a life lesson that proves we’re better together than apart.”
“We’re not.” We never were.
“But…” I griped her wrist and removed her hand from my chest. She stopped talking and looked up at me, pleading with me.
“I’m in love with someone else,” I confessed, but honestly even if I didn’t have Sadie I wouldn’t want to be with Karlie. I’d never noticed it when I was with her but I was miserable, we made one another unhappy. “I don’t want to go back, Karlie,” the confession felt amazing. “I’ll never go back, that time is over.”
She dropped her hand to her side, but continued to stare at me.
Karlie