19. Meg: Fuel from a Past Hurt

Chapter nineteen

Meg – Fuel from a Past Hurt

It's the same mess all over again, just with a different betrayal. Why didn't I see it coming? As I hide away in my bedroom, I can't help but think of my ex and how sneaky he ended up being.

He and I started out as best friends in high school. It wasn't long until I was wearing his letterman's jacket during our junior year. Like Drew, I thought he was damn near perfect in every way. He never forgot the important things. He knew how much it meant to me that he remembered my birthday and decorated my locker with ribbons and bows.

He could see how much the anniversary of my parents' deaths still hurt, so he made sure the whole day was filled with fun distractions like going to the beach, playing in the arcade, and spending hours in the library finding new books to read.

When he said he wanted to marry me one day, I had no reason to doubt him. We loved each other more than we could put into words. Everything was perfect.

Until the business trips began.

He didn't go to college after we graduated but, instead, worked as a project manager for a small construction company his father helped run. He was great at his job, like he was with anything he set his mind to. It was one of my favorite qualities about him. He was so good, in fact, that the higher-ups started bringing him on out-of-town work trips for potential new contracts.

The distance was hard at first, but we adjusted like any couple would. We spent hours talking on the phone at night and sending emails during the day when we had the chance. As much as I wanted him home with me, I wasn't going to stand in the way of him building a career.

But it was when the work trips started changing that my antenna should have gone up. Sadly, I only caught on when it was too late.

Something I didn't realize about my ex was how manipulative he could be. It started with little lies here and there that he could explain away. It made it that much easier for him to keep the wool over my eyes.

In the beginning, we would sit down with our calendars so I would know when he was in town and when he was away. That once-a-month date started to fall by the wayside, which made it easy for him to insist that he told me about an upcoming work trip weeks ago. "Yeah, I told you I was going to be in Orlando next weekend," he'd insist, as he packed his suitcase. "I told you last week. You must have forgotten."

As much as I swore up and down that I would have remembered news like that, I went along with his story. I was picking up more hours at the inn and setting up the pet program, so it made sense that I could have gotten the days mixed up.

But suddenly, weekend work trips began extending into the week when they hadn't before. "I'm sorry, babe, there was a mix-up with the contracts, and now I have to stay an extra day or two to help get everything straight," he'd say. "I'll make it up to you, I promise."

After a month like that, I started getting this sinking feeling in my stomach, screaming at me that something was wrong. I knew he wasn't telling the truth, but I didn't have a definitive way to prove it.

I worried that others would think I was being a crazy, paranoid girlfriend. That thought was almost as bad as thinking my boyfriend was cheating on me, and it was enough to keep me from confronting him about it.

When I thought my judgment was telling me something was off, who else would I confide in other than my best friend at the time?

"Come on, you know how much he works. How would he have time for a whole other relationship?" she reassured me firmly, and for a while, her reasoning assured me that nothing was wrong.

"I want to bring it up to him but I don't want to cause a tiff, you know? It's bugging me and I don't want it to," I replied.

"You don't want to do that," she insisted. "He's working his butt off right now and he's making a name for himself at the company. He doesn't need something silly like this distracting him when he's away, and you're here thinking up scenarios in your head that aren't true."

"I…I just thought that…" I stuttered. I was taken aback by her bluntness after thinking she surely would be on my side.

"This is me giving you some tough love, okay? Wait for things to calm down a bit with his job and then bring it up. You don't need to worry about anything," she assured me. She topped her tough love talk with a big hug before sending me on my way. But that wasn't the end of it.

Little did I know that she was the reason the "work trips" kept getting longer. The discovery came when I was unpacking his things after a weekend-turned-week-long trip. Just as I was getting his clothes in the washing machine, I caught an all too familiar scent of my best friend's perfume, the same one that always gave me a headache.

He didn't even try denying it.

"Come on, you can't tell me you didn't see there were problems," he said, and rolled his eyes.

"Are you kidding me? So, it's my fault that I didn't catch you sooner?" I snapped, throwing his clothes at him. "Did you have to sleep with my best friend, too?"

"She understands why I'm unhappy."

"Why didn't you think to tell me, your girlfriend? If you were so unhappy, why didn't you tell me?" I yelled, remembering how much I held in so it wouldn't affect his work.

"You would have overthought it like you always do. She was just easier to talk to and things just…happened," he said, like it was a simple mistake.

"If you wanted to be with someone else, why couldn't you have just said so instead of leading me on?" As soon as I asked, tears were streaming down my face, blurring my vision of our future together.

"I did everything I could for you. Don't I deserve the honesty of a proper breakup rather than feeling like I'm losing my mind thinking you're cheating on me and then telling myself I'm just paranoid? What did I do that was so wrong?"

The man who always seemed to have an answer was finally silent. He just looked at me, taking in the sight of his heartbroken girlfriend, crying her eyes out because of a ‘mistake' that became a habit. At that moment, all his lies unraveled, and so did my hope of finding someone to spend the rest of my life with.

I'd never felt so worthless before. Or since.

All the times we talked late at night, planning our future together, he made me feel like I was the only important thing in his life. He knew everything about me. I'd confided everything, as if he was a human diary.

He knew my fears, my weaknesses, my doubts. Instead of keeping them safely locked away, he used them to get away with his lies.

What's worse, though, was the betrayal. A second wave of pain would come when I reached for the phone to call my best friend about how much I hated him. Then I remembered the part she played in all of this and the cycle of emotional turmoil would continue.

What really turns my stomach is remembering the fight: what I heard; what I felt. When I visualize my ex's face, it's somehow replaced with Drew's. In my mind, they're one and the same.

They both lied and I should have seen it sooner but I didn't. I wanted to stay in that fairytale feeling where everything was great all the time but again, it came to bite me in the butt. It's my own fault for not being smarter this time around.

I blame myself for not speaking up about the red flags as they appeared just as much as when I blamed my ex for cheating on me. Surely, I could have saved myself a lot of heartache and kept a best friend in the process. But after a while, I realized it had to play out the way it did. It taught me a hard lesson about listening to your intuition. It's usually right.

Back then, it was Mia who had to help build me back up again. For weeks, I didn't want to get up, not even to walk the guests' pets on the beach. Somehow, she got me out of bed, outside, and doing something productive. She held me after work when I couldn't hold in the tears anymore.

She didn't judge me like I did myself. Instead, she listened when I needed to vent, and gave me the courage I needed to get through another day.

I never thought the cycle of sadness and pain would end until one day, I was up and out the door all on my own. I didn't need Mia to push me to do it, I simply did it and the world kept turning. Not long after, I started feeling more like myself, and less like I was worthless.

I swore up and down that relationships weren't for me, and that I was fine being by myself. I had Mia, the pets, and the inn, and that's all I needed. I could be perfectly happy living in paradise with the people I love most, working the job I love most, in the place I love most.

That is, until Drew walked into my life and turned that idea upside down.

He was a walking daydream and I should have seen the red flags. Surely there were plenty I missed, right?

I think back to our lunch dates and how he didn't care to share much about his family. I let myself assume they weren't close or they hadn't talked in a while. Families can have issues just like any relationship.

He didn't talk about work unless a text or email popped up on his phone that he quickly dismissed and put back in his pocket. As far as I knew, he was a man on vacation and didn't want to think about work. It made sense, but those were just red flags that were harder to spot.

When I try to think of other lies he must have told me besides his name, I come up short. What he did share about himself, about what little he shared about his family, was all technically true. He just shared as little of the truth as he could to hide who he was—who his family was—just in case I caught onto something he didn't want me to.

Still, I have a nagging feeling that there is more to learn about him, and I want to know. I grab my laptop from my desk and sit it down on my bed as I punch in Drew's real name.

The first link is to Bellamy's website. The homepage shows the founders, Drew's parents, and the many accomplishments and awards the Bellamy family has earned over the years. When I click the ‘Meet the Team' tab, Drew and his siblings are at the top of the page above the rest of the high executives in the company.

When I click on Drew's photo, the page shows me a man I hardly recognize. His bio is wafer-thin at best, saying that he's the second son of founder Richard Bellamy and has been head of contract negotiations for years.

The man in the photo isn't the Drew I know. He smiles, but just enough to make the picture seem friendly. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he didn't want to smile or be on the site. Period. His blond curls are much shorter and combed back where you can't even tell his hair is curly. His navy-blue suit compliments his complexion but makes features like his jawline and cheekbones sharper and more intimidating.

His eyes aren't warm like I'm used to. They're hard and intense and if I'm being honest, a little scary. I can only imagine what it would be like sitting across from him in a business meeting.

When I try to find more photos of him, I can't dig up much. Most of the time, the photos link to articles written by rag magazines claiming absurd stories about torrid affairs, wild nights of partying, and other stories that are just downright ridiculous.

What's sick is the story that tried saying there was foul play in his parents' deaths. Autopsy reports debunked it, thankfully. It's clear the writers were just making up whatever they could to make a buck. So, if I was Drew Bellamy, I might want to pretend to be someone else too.

The only clear photo of him is that headshot on the company website. Yes, there are a few candid shots from gossip magazines but he's got his head down, sunglasses on, or has his hand up to obstruct the image.

If you didn't know any better, he could just be another guy walking down the street. He's never seen at public events like his brother Troy or his sisters. He seems to keep to himself as much as possible.

It hits me that I might actually know more about Drew Bellamy than the rest of the world does. They don't know about the childhood memories of sailing that he holds close to his heart. They don't know that he hates peas and asparagus but ironically loves brussels sprouts with his dinner. They don't get to see the smile I fell in love with, the one he gets when we're talking for hours and we're laughing about a fond memory of the past.

Have they seen the way his left cheek gets a dimple when he laughs hard enough, but not the right? Do they know that if they look close enough, they can see flecks of green in his beautiful brown eyes?

The world knows him by only a name and a singular photo. There's no doubt that's by design. The world has no idea what they're missing and I feel spoiled getting to know as much as I do about him.

As much as I try putting Drew in the same boat as my ex, I realize that it's pointless. They aren't even on the same playing field. The more I'm faced with what I know to be true about Drew, the more I start to understand why he did what he did.

An empty feeling starts to embrace me when I think of Drew's face, how his brown eyes bring me into him and keep me there, and how much I want to be near him despite everything. I gently graze one hand with the other, mimicking Drew's touch.

If I close my eyes, I can feel him next to me on the beach again, drawing lazy circles with his thumb as he holds my hand. It's easy to imagine his presence next to me, the aroma of his cologne that has become a comfort to me. It's a comfort I want to get back. I know it would be the perfect cure to these conflicting emotions that feel as though there's a war going on inside my heart.

One side wants to protect me and save me from completely shattering to pieces like I did with my ex. It clings to the key that guards my heart for dear life, shielding me from any chance of another heartbreak. I can't go through something like that again.

But the other side is pulling, screaming, begging me to run to Drew. The second he wraps his arms around me, I'll know that everything is going to be okay. He'll find a way to fix things. He'll find a way we can be together and things can be simple again.

I glance over to my small bookshelf in the corner of my room, which houses dozens of romance novels, all with the perfect happy endings for each individual couple. I know that even in the best love stories, there's a struggle. A conflict of some kind that tries to keep the lovebirds from being together.

What really makes the story is when each of them realizes what they have to do in order to be with the one they love most. They often sacrifice something. They make a change that can fix everything in the name of love. This change brings them closer together than they were before, which makes the ending that much sweeter.

In my head, I can see Drew holding me, his hands softly playing with my hair while his lips feather kisses on my forehead. He'd tell me everything's okay, that his family doesn't want to buy the inn, and we can be together. The lies would all just be one bad dream that I'd wake from and get my happily ever after. But I know that's not reality.

He lied about who he really is.

He lied about why he's really here.

How do I know he's not lying about wanting to make things right with me?

How do I save myself from a broken heart when I want him this badly?