Misguided Heart

Twenty

Aston

When the bright, blaring sun broke through the blinds this morning, I knew it was time to get up. I frantically ran around the suite trying to gather all of my belongings. After shoving everything into my bag, I grabbed the hotel key card and my purse and headed down to check out. All of Sloan's things were gone out of the room, only leaving mine behind. I may have been jumping to conclusions, but I was pretty sure he had never come back to bed last night.

At first, I was pissed but after showering and packing I came to the realization that this is what I had wanted the whole time. I made it clear to him what I didn't want and what I did. I guess this was just his way of sticking to my words; not that it didn't hurt me any less. He hadn't even left a note, text message, email, anything.

When I reached the front desk, I asked the lady if he had left and she confirmed my suspicions. She told me that he left last night and dropped of his room key off to her personally. I was suddenly fuming. After all this time I sat there thinking how gentlemanly this guy was, when in all actuality, he was just as bad as the rest of them.

I shrugged my shoulders, pulled my sunglasses down on my face, and made my way out to the valet. I sat there stewing for the five minutes it took the guy to bring my car around. At least today was Sunday, and I wouldn't have to deal with him until Monday at work. I drove home in a daze. I was so preoccupied that I'm pretty sure I ran a red light, and a stop sign. I was getting even more worked up when I made the decision to call Shelby. She was the only one who could talk me down off of the ledge.

To my surprise, she answered after only the first ring. “What's up slut?” I smiled for the first time since waking up this morning. We may have had a way with words when it came to talking to each other, but it always cheered me up and made me smile.

“Nothing much, whore. So, how did everything go with Braden last night?” I honestly didn't care, but I needed to talk about something to clear my mind off of my current predicament.

“Let's just say, after last night, Braden will no longer have a girlfriend.” She started laughing and I couldn't help but laugh along with her. Her mood was proving to be contagious today.

“Well at least someone's night turned out alright. Mine, not so much.” I flipped on my blinker to get n the freeway, heading towards my house.

“What happened? I heard about what happened with Rob, are you okay?”

“Yeah I'm fine. I dropped him to his knees, so I'm pretty sure he will be steering clear of me for a while. Other than that, things started out great with Sloan. He knew why I had asked him to the wedding but he was okay with it, actually, more than okay. We even ended up having sex last night. But, then I woke up this morning, alone.”

“Like all alone, alone?”

“Exactly like that.” I didn't try to hide the irritation in my voice.

“What a douche. I'm sorry girl, better to find out now rather than later. No?”

“Who knows? So, Braden is breaking up with his girlfriend huh? Good for you guys.” I wasn't really that happy for them. Honestly, I was giving them two weeks and that was being generous. Those two weren't meant to be in any sort of long-term commitment, trust me.

“Yeah, he left this morning to go talk to her. He said he would be back in a few hours. So how about that wedding?” Her laugh echoed through the phone. Making me pull it away from my ear.

“Now that, I really don't want to talk about.”

“Okay. Now do you want to know what Darren said?” I was to emotionally exhausted to the point where I didn’t want to argue with her, so I just answered with a 'sure'. “Girl he has still got it bad for you, I can tell you that much. I swear he was going to pummel Sloan into the ground at the bar the other night. He literally didn't take his eyes off of you, not once. I asked Braden about it, he just said that Darren had never gotten over you. Apparently, he also figured that you had moved on, so he did too.”

“What a crock of shit! And I'm pretty sure Sloan wouldn't have given a shit, even if Darren would have tried to take me away.” I mumbled more to myself than to her.

“I don't know, Braden said he was pretty torn up when he saw you leave with Sloan. I told Darren not to hold his breath.”

“Well good, thanks Hun.” I was so over this conversation. In fact, I was over men all together. I knew I should've stuck with my plan, leaving all men out of the equation. “Well, I just got home, so I'll talk at ya later. Glad things are looking up for you.”

“Aston, they'll be looking up for you too, soon enough.”

“Thanks, but I won't hold my breath.” I ended my call with Shelby just as I pulled into my garage. I scooped my things out of the trunk and headed next door to get Bugsy. How sad my life had become that I looked forward to coming home to my dog and not a man.

After I grabbed Bugsy from my neighbor, I decided that this day was going to be a wine and pool day. I was making my way onto the cool deck when I heard my cell phone start ringing. At this point, I was over everybody all together. I didn't have anybody to worry about being hurt, because I was the last person anyone would put down as an emergency contact.

When my mom died, I had just turned eighteen a few months before. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer when I was fifteen. She fought long and hard and finally found herself in remission just after my seventeenth birthday. My mom had been my best friend for my whole life. My dad left when I was only two, so needless to say, I didn't remember the bastard.

Six months after we got the good news about my mother’s remission, we got a phone call informing us that the cancer had come back and was spreading rapidly. Unfortunately, there was nothing left for us to do but ride it out. My mom held on for a hell of a lot longer than the doctors had anticipated, and I was thrilled when she made it through my high school graduation. I turned eighteen the summer after graduation and that was when she became extremely weak. Knowing what she was going through and what I would eventually have to face, I started taking college classes the beginning of my senior year.

I doubled my workload, but still found the time to help my mom as much as I could regardless.

She was a beautiful woman, my mother, she never looked a day over thirty-five. She had dark brown hair and matching dark brown eyes. I looked nothing like her, but that never mattered to me. Everybody tried to tell me how much I looked like my father but I didn't really care who I looked like. I had her and she had me and that was all that ever mattered.

We spent the last couple of months of her life preparing for the inevitable. Don't get me wrong, we had a lot of fun too, but she didn't want me to have to worry when the time came. We went out to dinners, the movies, vacations, we even went skydiving together. A week before she passed, we went to get matching tattoos. My mother had always been against tattoos, not because she thought they looked trashy, but because she could never have something so permanent on her for the rest of her life. Now that the rest of her life was staring her right in the face, she threw all caution to the wind and went for it.

We both ended up getting a small pink broken heart to symbolize the love and loss we would both feel very soon. I got mine on the top of my right foot and she had gotten hers behind her right ear. That was the best day of my life thus far. When she died a week later, I stared at my foot for what felt like days, knowing that she wouldn't want me to dwell on the bad. You can think you're prepared for losing a parent when you have the time to say goodbye, but nothing can ever prepare you for the heartbreak you experience.

Once my mom was gone, I vowed to myself to never let anyone get that close to me. I couldn't go through another heartbreak like that ever again. I threw myself into college and graduated early, with honors I might add.

My first job out of the gate was at PJ Holden and Son, and now here I was. I glanced down past my bikini-clad body to stare at the small tattoo on my foot. I smiled up at the sky, knowing that my mother was looking down on me. I laid back soaking up the sun's blistering rays. As I was just about to drift off into a peaceful rest, my phone began blaring again, this time I could hear it over the music.

I rolled my eyes as I pushed myself up out of my lounger. So much for a peaceful relaxing day. My phone stopped ringing just as I reached for it and I noticed that I had five missed calls. What in the world? All of the numbers were ones I didn't recognize, so I decided to call them back. When an unrecognizable woman’s voice answered, I almost hung up.

“I don't mean to be rude, but can I ask who this is?”

“This is Sara, you know Nole's, um, well I guess ex now.”

My voice caught in my throat as I thought about what to say to this girl. I had only met her one time and have regretted it ever since. “What can I do for you, Sara?”

“Look, I know I said some pretty harsh things to you at my wedding and I'm sorry, but have you heard from Nole?” Her voice was strained and I couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

“Sara, I don't blame you. Trust me I understand. When it comes to Nole, you never know what you're going to get. Unfortunately, I haven't heard from him. I wish I had just so I could put your mind at ease, but I haven't talked to him since that day.” I made my way into the living room as she kept rambling on and on.

“Well, I appreciate it. I just needed to talk to him. Can you do me a favor?”

“Of course.” I was hesitant but she deserved that much.

“If you do hear from him, could you please tell him to call me?”

“Absolutely Sara. And hey, take care of yourself.”

“Thanks Aston, you do the same.”

The line went dead and I threw myself onto the couch. Seriously, could my life be any more complicated?