Losing Control Read Free Page B

explained. “She should be back soon.”
    “Good.”
    “But,” I said, picking up my car keys from the counter. “How about I take you out for brunch?”
    Lane leaped off the bar. “You’ll drive? What about Stanton?”
    “I gave him the weekend off.”
    “Are we going in the Lexus or the convertible?”
    “The convertible of course.”
    “Nice!” he said, excitedly. “Can I drive?”
    “Lane—”
    “I know. I’m not supposed to drive.”
    “I’m sorry…”
    “No,” he said, clearly hurt, but trying to hide it. “I get it. Can I at least pick the place?”
    “Anywhere you want.”
    “Okay then, let’s go. I’m starving!”
    As I watched him run off out the front entrance, I knew there was no way to tell if he actually felt that happiness he was pretending to feel. I doubted everything. Perhaps it was Mom’s constant warnings that had gotten to me, or the fact that I knew Lane more than he thought he did, more than he showed anyone, that I felt suddenly afraid. What if there was something wrong? What if he had come here because there was something going on back at school that he didn’t want to talk to me about? I went outside anyway, hoping I wouldn’t have to find out. Hoping that my baby brother was actually happy and not just pretending to be.

ELENA

     
     
     
     
    People tell you how you’re supposed to work on broken relationships, instead of throwing them away. Only, not all broken things can be fixed. Sometimes it’s better to just give up and move on before you get hurt even more. In a relationship sometimes you would go years without feeling like there’s a problem and then there will be that one moment where you just know everything is lost forever. For me, that moment came when I saw Nick with that woman and I just couldn’t keep it together. I knew I couldn’t let him do this to me. There is something about Nick that always made me feel like I was the bad one in this story. Even though he was always the one cheating and lying, he somehow managed to make me feel like I deserved his rotten behavior. And it’s not just me. Nick is the kind of guy who manipulated you so you would forget why you were mad at him and instead think about what you were doing wrong. He does this with just about everyone. He’s never even been supportive of my writing, because Nick tends to think that unless something makes you money it’s not worth doing at all. He was constantly reminding me that I was living in fantasy, that I was one of those dreamer types who like to think they’re special when they’re not. Always telling me how I wasn’t pragmatic, and how my unrealistic standards and desires were simply not something that one can survive with in this world.
    Penny, being the good listener that she is didn’t say a word while I let it all out that morning. She stayed supportive and waited until I had related the entire account to her. My ex had always been a kind of riddle to me. Up until then I kept giving him second chances even though Penny always advised me against it. As I was unloading about this to Penny, it was like Nick’s spell broke. I could see things I wasn’t even seeing before. Nick was the only guy I had ever dated, and I know now that I was being blinded by the idea of a fairy-tale ending to our romance.
    “Listen,” Penny said when I was done talking. “I don’t expect you to start dancing around just yet that would be wrong. You take all the time you need, I’m right here. But it won’t be right if he starts talking to you again or tries to see you and you go back to him. I just want you to remember that.”
    I don’t think Penny understood how much I wanted to get away from Nick. She didn’t know how much I really hated him now, and how being with him was the last thing I would ever want. It was hard to believe but something broke inside me the minute I saw him naked in bed, in our bed with her, sharing that kind of intimacy. Just thinking about it made me want