“Well, she got one thing right.” Scorpio tossed the letter across the table. “You deserve better.”
Wrong.
There was nothing better than Nadia.
“And to think I didn’t want you anywhere near her because I thought you’d be the one to mess her up,” he scoffed. “That backfired fast.”
If I had listened to him… if I had killed the obsession before it transformed into love the way a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly, I would still be the same guy: a playboy with no feelings, no meaning and no future; an arrogant asshole who treated women like blow-up dolls; a self-centred idiot who considered his life a waste of time.
How could I regret loving her? If I would have given up at the start, I wouldn’t know what love was or what happiness felt like. She gave me more than I deserved and more than I hoped to receive.
She opened my eyes.
“Nadia is gone, Thomas,” Scorpio said, his tone careful as if he expected me to lose my shit any minute. “I’m sorry, mate, but if you don’t accept it soon, you’ll get hurt.”
“I know.” I arched back, staring at the ceiling.
The last two weeks were a blur of alcohol, self-pity and pain.
“You got dumped before, right? Why didn’t you tell me that it feels like I collided with a train?”
Scorpio’s features softened. A glint of sympathy crossed his face.
“It doesn’t, unless you’re in love. As much as I like and respect you, I never thought you’d be capable of love—not even before Adam died.”
Neither did I, not in my wildest dreams. Love seemed overrated. The idea of being attached toonewoman for the rest of my days was scary to say the least. Why would anyone want to limit themselves to one girl when there were hundreds of thousands of them in London alone? The no-strings attached, quick fucks were my bread and butter since I turned sixteen. Maybe even earlier.
What wasn’t there to like? I didn’t need to act like a pussy-whipped idiot. No late-night dinners, arguments, conversations or handholding. No hugs or kisses.Nothing. Just sex. I didn’t mind it because I had no idea what I was missing out on…
Until Nadia.
One look into her sad, brown eyes was enough for a herd of emotions, which I had considered extinct, to flood my structure; emotions, which helped me grow not only as a man, but as a human being.
I couldn’t hate her for leaving. She once told me Adrian dragged her through hell, but she chose to help him, regardless. Her courage amazed me and scared me at the same time. He was an addict, a drug user, but she sacrificed our relationship and the progress she made to make sure Adrian would get better and stay better.
“I think my phone is in the car.” I combed my hair back with my fingers. “I’ll organise a tow-truck.”
“Call someone to fix the fence and the flowerbed,” Scorpio huffed. “Jane will break your nose when she sees it.”
Despite the vein throbbing on his neck, Scorpio dropped me off at home once the BMW was towed away. I sure didn’t deserve a friend like him. For the past two weeks I fucked up on every corner, yet he still had the decency not to call the cops when I turned up at his house in the middle of the night, hammered.
CHAPTER 2
NADIA
Not my lips
They say women experience a bad case of post-breakup depression.
Phase one—cry, eat chocolates, and watch romantic movies in pyjamas. Phase two—drink and curse the guy. Phase three—burn his shit, meet a new guy and start over.
Or so I heard.
No matter what they do, they recover faster than men. We are the ones who suffer. I didn’t believe it until it was my turn to lose the girl I loved. Pain that arrived when I realised Nadia left—and it took me three whole days to accept reality—was comparable to the pain that plagued me when Adam died.
I didn’t eat, sleep or shower. I did, however, drink extraordinary amounts of alcohol, drowning in self-pity. My heart broke whenever my subconscious pushed Nadia to the front of my thoughts… which was non-stop.
The scariest part? I wasn’t any good without Nadia. Fear wasn’t a foreign feeling, but it had been a while since it wrapped itself around me like a wet, itchy blanket. Fear accompanied me when, surrounded by gunshots fired from every direction, I watched my friend take his last breath. It was there, when Claudia was in labour, screaming in pain, but I hadn’t experienced fear as strong as when I realised that my relationship with Nadia was over. The unease rolled around inside me like dirty water—a permanent resident of my stomach and mind.