The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

Chapter 217

Arrick’s POV

~ Letting Sophie go ~

I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling of my room. I haven’t moved from this spot all night, still fully dressed and unable to even get up and function. The weight in my chest is almost holding me in place, crushing me with the pain, and I can’t stop running last night through my mind endlessly. I’m restless, torn, scrunching my fingers in my hair like I can rip this out of my head. The worst sort of agony that surpasses all.

I want to go to her room and see her, but I can’t. I can’t get her out of my head, even though she is only feet away and it’s torturing me.

I kissed Sophie... I did more than kiss her, and it felt good, it felt right. It made me feel a thousand things about her that I can’t even begin to analyze, comprehend how to, and all it did was make everything fall apart even more than it was, especially when Natasha showed up and slapped me back to reality. I know that I have feelings for her, so overwhelming that it’s terrifying and I have no clue how to navigate it without completely losing my mind. She makes me feel like I’m on the edge of a precipice and one little step will send me falling to the depths. It’s the single most terrifying thing I have ever felt.

Sophie scares me. Her blind faith and trust that we can just come together, and I will be everything she needs and wants in life. It’s crushing and suffocating, that she has so much faith in what she thinks it will be; she has no clue about the depths of pain that come with it falling apart. How real the threat of not working is, how it will destroy us. And there is no guarantee that we won’t fall apart.

I wanted her so badly, every part of my body, blocking out the niggles and doubts, despite the tidal wave of them. Natasha was the last thing on my mind, only Sophs and that beautiful face as she looked at me with those gorgeous blue eyes, that mouth that just aches to be kissed. She has no idea

how much I wanted to lose myself in her and forget everything else around us. The pull she has always had over me.

She’s like a siren who was built specifically to pull me in and mesmerize me alone. Natasha showing up and destroying all that was a slap in the face. A wake-up call for a million reasons. I can’t go down that road with Sophie, I have too much to lose. Everything that clouds how I feel about her, the way her family would look at me for chasing her that way. I have everyone’s trust, including hers, and it crosses so many boundaries to give into my desires. She was a child when I met her, one who needed me, needed a hero and a protector. I would be abusing so much if I let my own needs overtake all that. It would destroy what we have if it all fell apart, there would be no coming back from that, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

Natasha was distraught, her sobbing and heart-breaking almost ended me; sitting for hours with her while my guilt consumed me. Listening to her cry, trying to fix what I did. All the while, my head on the girl I left in my apartment the whole time and it made it all so much worse to deal with. I just clamped down and hid inside my own head. Saying what I needed to, to get her to stop crying and realizing that neglecting my life with her was happening long before Sophie made me think differently about her.

I need to go back and water my own garden, nurture my relationship back to happier times and stop fantasizing about something new and exciting. I’m not someone who just destroys the heart of the girl who loves me. Not that guy. Not some cheating ass hole who throws everything away and acts so coldly.

Only hours before, did I promise her, a fresh start, to fix the mess growing between us and yet there I was, moments away from picking up my best friend and making love to her. I know I would have, Sophie was willing, and I was incapable of stopping. I only saw and felt her, and in that headspace, it was all that mattered to me. Pulled in by her spell and so willing to follow her to the ends of eternity. It would have solved nothing and only served to destroy everything, so close to the brink of complete disaster.

I hear the noise of her in the room outside and I pause, holding my breath as she does whatever she is doing out there and it makes the pain in my gut grow larger, threatening to consume me from the inside out. It sounds like she’s pulling boxes, or a case and I know I should get up and help her. No. I should stop her. Although, I’m the one who told her to go so maybe I shouldn’t. We need time apart, space. I’m so fucked up about this. I don’t even know what to do, so instead, I just lay here, tense, muscles taut and poised.

I told her I chose Natasha.... Even when I was saying it, it was like sawdust in my throat and the look on her face ripped me apart. I couldn’t breathe, but I know it’s the right thing to do. More than just Sophie’s heart is at stake in this, and as much as it kills me right now, I know she will forgive me eventually. She’ll understand that having each other, forever, as friends... is better than an affair that could end us for all time. I need her too much to screw everything up with sex. I need her in my life and if we cross that boundary, there’s no guarantee of that. I need the guarantee that I won’t lose her.

I can hear the scraping of something heavy and I sit up, body tense, still, and aching to go to her, but something holds me back. A deep internal feeling of something that won’t let me follow her, as though some invisible force has me gripped. I need to let her do this, leave and work through this mess in separate places.

My breathing gets more labored, but yet I am still silently straining to hear her. Picturing her in my head. Torturing myself with images of her naked last night.

It’s still dark out, clock says it’s before six and even that little fact hurts me. She never gets up before the sun is up, it’s against everything she is. Sophie has never been an early riser, she hates mornings with a passion, so I guess this is her trying to get away from me before I get up. Not that I blame her. I fucked us up royally last night, and the look on her face is all I can fixate on. It’s killing me to remember that betrayal, that pain in those eyes I love so much. It gnaws at me like an eternal twisting slice. Every time I see her in there, looking back at me with so much disappointment.

My throat constricts, and I have to fight the urge to clutch my gut. She knows how to make me bleed. With a look. A killing little look. A word. A sentence.

‘I don’t need you anymore’ her own words that ripped out the last pieces of my heart and trampled them to dust when I faced her last night. Only Sophs could make those five words a more effective weapon than any manmade tool fit for the purpose.

The elevator pings, telling me she’s pressed the button to summon it and I’m on my feet in a flash, needing to stop her without thinking anymore. Panic rising inside of me, and impulsively going after her. Fear consuming me that if I let her leave, it will change everything, and I won’t get her back.

Head running one way, yet my body takes over and my feet freeze as I get to the door, hand on the metal handle and I can’t move. Natasha swimming in my mind, guilt eating me, the voices of those around me telling me to let this go.

Do the right thing. Be the good guy. Don’t be selfish and hurt people who love you. Be a good boy. Stop letting this mess continue and stick to the plan, Arry.

I clutch my head and try like crazy to get some sense and some focus to drown out the chaos. Instinct takes over as I hear the swoosh of the elevator doors and I’m out of the room in a flash, the only thought in my head.

Hold onto her.... Don’t lose her.... Don’t let her go.

I run out into the open plan room and see the doors closing already, she’s inside with her back to me. A pile of boxes around her feet and she looks so god damn small, and fragile. That slim little body, holding herself in her own arms, vulnerable, rejected, unloved, like she did the first time I ever laid eyes on her. Closed up, broken, and alone.

I’m doing this to her. I’m pushing her out, making her leave me. My heart breaks at the sight of her and I’m fast on my feet, running for the doors, running against the hysteria consuming me. Needing to pull her out of that elevator to tell her I don’t mean any of it. To wrap her in my arms and make it all better for her. That’s my job! That’s my soul purpose in life; to be Sophie’s healer. To take care of her. I always said I would take care of her. I promised her that I would never leave her.

Why did I destroy all of that? Why did I lie?

I’m not fast enough and my voice sticks in my throat when I try to call to her, hitting the closed steel surface with a thud bodily, seconds after it’s shut; frantically clawing at the tiny gap in the doors to peel them apart and getting nowhere. I hit the button manically. Over and over, willing the doors to open for me, pressing it like I might impale it through the wall, acting like a complete lunatic but they don’t. The light starts going down and taking her from me, whether I want it to or not.

No, Sophs!!!

Like fate is trying to give me a real message, that I made my choice and I should heed it. I’m breathing hard, body trembling with the adrenalin caused by outward panic and distress and my heart is fit to burst out of my rib cage.

She’s going......... really walking out, leaving.

Something in my stomach is telling me this is all wrong and try as I might to calm my breathing and the tension growing inside of me. I can’t push it away. I run back to my room, searching for my cell, searching for shoes to go after her. Manically throwing shit around as I look for it and realize I have no clue where it is. I pull on sneakers haphazardly, throw on a hooded sweater without hesitation and grab my car keys in a blind flash, head set on one purpose.

Follow her. She needs you. You need her. If you let her go, you’ll regret it.

The elevator takes an age to start heading back up, hitting the button, and cursing out the fact they need more than one in this building for my fucking apartment. Pacing listlessly in front of it. It’s the downside to an access via elevator only, floor. One fucking exit. I could die up here in a fire, waiting on this god damn piece of shit. Die waiting for a fucking elevator, while she could already be in a cab, going god knows where, as I have no clue what her plans are after leaving me. My insides are twisting in anxiety, at the thought, that every wasted second, she gets further away from me and it seems a hell of a lot more symbolic now. I can feel her slipping out of my fingers and it’s like I no longer have the power to bring her back if she disappears fully from grasp.

I hear my cell ringing in the apartment behind me and spin impulsively, frantic taking over, in case it’s her and manically running back, searching for the source. I spy it on the counter in the kitchen, with my wallet, and realize she must have left them there for me... after Natasha.... Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

Fuck.

It’s Natasha; I blanche at the flashing screen and my gut instantly recoils, not wanting to answer it. Almost like she’s reading my mind, knowing how close I am to tearing after Sophie and sending us all back to square one. It’s like fate is using her as a guilt retrieval system and calming my impulsive jets. Puling me back from what would only hurt her more.

It works. Gushing with a million emotions that send me spiraling right back to my personal hell, knowing I can’t keep doing this shit. It’s not fair on either of them. I stare at the screen and stand still, from erratic chaos to icy cold stillness. Watching it flash, listening to the fucking, annoying as shit, ringtone, she put on there and staring at the selfie she sent me.

A girl I am supposed to love, a girl I promised forever too, who loves me, who trusts me, who spent two years devoted to me.

I crumple down on the floor, legs caving with the magnitude of the everything I have laid out in front of me and my body gives up the fight. I take a slow deep breath, eyes straying to the elevator as it opens with a subtle ping, and I have no clue what I should do anymore. Body and mind unable to choose a direction and my heart bursts and spills all over the floor. I feel like my head is about to self-implode as chaos once again reigns supreme.

Sophie deserves more. She deserves someone who knows what he wants, knows how to treat her. How to love her. She is so worth loving and running after. She’s beautiful, smart, funny... cute as hell; yet there is a seriously addictive aura that comes with her. She’s special and she’s like no other girl I’ve ever met. She makes me laugh, and everything feels better when she’s here. She has a way of making me forget about all the crappy serious shit in life that drags me down, brings me back to the fun and the light. She makes me a nicer guy to be around. I do love her.

Natasha is staring back at me from the screen and I know that I have responsibilities. Duty to be a grown up about this. The girl who has been by my side for two years, devoted, adoring, patient and understanding. She puts up with so much and she never complains. I’ve neglected her, taken her for granted and pushed her aside endlessly. Even before this, I always let Sophie come between us in so many ways and have been giving Sophie the attention that I should have been giving my girlfriend all along.

Ending things to run after Sophie is the ultimate in cruelty, and betrayal, and I can’t do it. Not after everything that happened and her hours of tears, begging and making me promise her to try again. She deserves loyalty at least. I owe that to her, and so much more in terms of respect. Somewhere in me, I know I love her too. I need to stop fucking around and try to give her what she deserves, what I owe her. What I promised last night.

It stops ringing and I sit, staring blankly, head a chaos of mess and emotions and it starts to ache so badly I see stars in the air around me. Heart heavier than lead and the apartment feels empty and dead.

Sophie is gone... in every way. I scan the room around me with an empty soul as I take in all the almost unnoticeable subtle differences. Things most people would not even see. In the small things she leaves littered around, the careless mess that’s Sophs, the eclectic random shit that used to drive me mental. They are all gone.

The trinkets, magazines, her shoes, her bags, and her eternal trail of all thing’s unicorn, that she leaves on every surface, shelf, and area of floor when she’s here. There is nothing left. Not even that dumb sparkly pink flower magnet she stuck on the refrigerator two years ago, when I first moved in and claimed I had to have something pink in this house, for her. Even her sneakers from under the corner of the window seat, that have sat there for twenty-one months are missing, will no longer gather dust. They were part of the furniture and had never moved since she kicked them there so long ago.

She’s removed every single microscopic piece of her from my life, from every corner, table, and nook. All that is Sophie is just gone, and my apartment looks empty and devoid of life. Even the air which is normally heavily scented with what she sprays around, the candles she lights or the melt things she puts on, aren’t lingering. It’s like even the oxygen in the room has followed her out and only suffocating staleness is left

It hurts like hell, but this is what I deserve. This her final message to me.

Boy does that girl know how to deliver a blow that kills, without even trying.

All I can see is the anger in her face as she walked to that room last night, her parting words coursing through my brain, and despite the agony, I know I need to leave this alone. Let her simmer and stew. Let us get used to how things are and try to rebuild what we were. She needs time to calm down and I need time to sort my head out.

She’s angry right now, she’s hurt. But in the long run, it will be better this way. Sophie is not gone forever, she’s upset, and she’s sulking. This is what she does when things don’t go her way. She’s

packed up and stormed off so many times in the past over stupid shit and I need to see this as another, maybe harsher, version of that. Her way to wound me.

We can and will get past this and we will all have to start from scratch to rebuild our relationships. It’s best for everyone this way. I need her. More than I need anything else in life. I’ll get her to forgive me, and we can all go back to how things were, eventually. When she too see’s that this is the best way, and I’m right.

I’m not choosing Natasha... I’m choosing the right thing, doing the right thing, for all of us. So we can bring some normal and calm back to all three of our lives.

I just need for my heart and soul to catch up with the program before my lack of Sophs ends me.