Page 96 of Mr. Hotshot CEO

Still no answer.

Dammit.

It’s okay. I can do this. I’ll wait another ten minutes. Surely he’ll call within ten minutes, and if not, I’ll call Naomi. It’s okay.

I manage another ten minutes, but when I call Julian again, I get voicemail.

Hmm. Maybe he had a work dinner, although wouldn’t he have told me when I saw him at lunchtime?

But he didn’t, and that’s okay.

I don’t deserve to have a boyfriend anyway.

I tremble and let it all wash over me, a wave slamming against the shore. Even if I do deserve to have a boyfriend, which is what Naomi would say, Ican’thave one. It’s not safe for me.

Look at me. I’m a fucking wreck. I may have two degrees, but I’m an idiot who can’t even read right now and can’t stop all these awful thoughts from running through my mind. If something bad had happened, like a relative died or a parent was diagnosed with cancer, it would be reasonable for me to need his comfort.

Except I’m a fucking wreck over nothing. Planning a surprise lunchtime visit for Julian and having it not go as hoped—that was a little disappointing, but no big deal. Googling his ex and realizing she’s successful and gorgeous was irritating, but they seem to be over each other, so no biggie, right?

Fuck, I’m so unstable.

It’s not safe for me to have a boyfriend because no man is going to tolerate a woman like me. If I responded to medication and therapy, maybe it would be different, but my depression is so special that it resists treatment, so I’m stuck like this.

Who the fuck doesn’t respond to therapy? What’s wrong with me?

Inevitably, any boyfriend would break up with me, like Dane did. And that destroyed me. It tipped me over the edge.

I cannot survive that again.

I have to end this before it’s too late.

At that thought, a sense of peace descends on me. I curl up on the couch, my mind blank. I still feel like crap, but at least my thoughts aren’t coming rapid-fire anymore.

I have to break up with Julian. That’s just the reality of the situation.

But I love him.

There’s an unbearable hollowness in my chest, and my brain feels like it’s stuffed with straw, but even through all that, I know I love him. It would be foolish to think this will be easy. However, it’ll be easier to do it now than to deal with him leaving me in a couple months.

I snuggle up under the blanket and hug myself tight. The phone rings, and I jump in surprise, but I don’t answer it. It’s probably Julian, and I can’t deal with that now. Tomorrow, I’ll see him—we have plans to eat dinner together—and I’ll end this.

When he asked me if we could be together, I never should have said yes, but what’s done is done, and now I have to fix it.

There are quieter voices in my head, telling me that maybe it will all work out and we can be together and he won’t leave me.

But I can’t be seduced by that fantasy again.

It’s a fantasy, nothing more.