♫ I spilled the milk you left for me
My tears are falling flawlessly now ♪
{Halsey—You asked for this}

Coralie and Bella left the timeshare abruptly. It was already paid for, and Coralie couldn't stand another minute of memories. Unprovoked, unwanted memories that reminded her how much of a fool she'd made of herself, and how wrong she'd been all along.

She didn't explain much to Bella; only hastened her to get her things together and get moving. Coralie drove, this time, and occasionally she left Bella breathless and white-knuckled from gripping the door handle one too many times. Coralie drove fast, speeding by sights, ignorant of most laws—and she didn't care, because she only wanted to get home.

Once home, she isolated in her room and asked that Bella and Delilah leave her alone. She had much thinking to do, but also many tears to let out. All the tears she'd been holding back after finding out Ryan wasn't the one. The tears she'd kept in after realizing her feelings for Chester were mostly carnal, lustful. And coming to terms with the fact that Michael had been the right choice but was no longer an option.

A day passed, and Coralie barely left her room—only to force herself into the shower and go to the bathroom. Delilah mostly let her be, as requested; but Bella dropped off plates of food, water bottles, and pressed kisses to Coralie's temple. She said nothing, but it was evident she wanted to speak up. Coralie thanked her for choosing not to.

Coralie stared at the ceiling, rehashing recollections. Revising moments where she should have said no to Ryan, and should have pushed Chester away. She'd had so many opportunities to erase them both from her life, yet her vagina and brain had teamed up against her heart and prompted her into doing what wasn't best for her.

She put on music, stumbled upon songs that reminded her of one of the men in her life, cried harder, turned the music off. A few times she tried to read, but she couldn't focus. The only thing she managed to do was write in her journal, and type up a few depressing lyrics that would make up a great song in the future.

She scrolled through her social media accounts—still receiving praise from her performance—and unblocked Chester, curious to see what he was up to. He hadn't been up to much, apparently; posting a handful of pictures from a bar he'd gone to the night before, and some lines of poetry which he shared regularly with his followers.

Coralie's feed had been inactive, and she was compelled, out of nowhere, to update it. To share her thoughts, her emotions, with her growing list of followers.

She typed up a few of the lyrics she'd jotted down earlier and put them up as a status update on her Facebook.

"Use your heart, they said, it'll guide you; but mine made me hide behind you; now I've lost and I'm the only one to blame, for the voices in my head driving me insane."

Her eyes grew watery as she pressed the share button. She locked her screen and set the phone on her nightstand, to resume wringing out her feelings on paper, in her journal. And then to sleep, hopefully, without nightmares.

***

The next morning, Coralie woke to someone climbing into bed with her. She expected it to be Bella—whom she'd overheard the night before discussing "drastic measures" with Delilah, who'd told her to let Coralie wallow in peace.

But upon opening her eyes, Coralie was shocked into nearly tumbling off the bed. It wasn't Bella, nor was it Delilah; it was someone bulkier, and heavier. A man?

As she grabbed her phone and flashed its screen's light at this invader, she saw a tall, glowing green-eyed man with messy locks of blond hair and a gray sweatshirt smelling of pine trees and a faint whiff of smoke.

"Cora," said Chester, unfazed by Coralie's astonishment at his creeping into her bed.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" she whispered, unsure what time it was, and unwilling to wake the girls with the screech she wanted to unleash if it was too early. She flicked on her bedside lamp and glowered at him.

He'd snuck under the covers, but she'd caught sight of his matching jogging pants—had he been out for a run? He didn't smell like it, and his forehead wasn't shiny with sweat.

She prepared mentally for him to shrug off his sweatshirt and reveal the wife-beater he was probably wearing underneath; to remove that, too, and then his pants, and be left in his boxers, in her bed. Had he come for sex? Had he not listened to her when she'd told him what she had to do with Ryan? He was supposed to wait for her to inform him of her choice, not sneak in at dawn and woo her with his penis.

Easily aroused as she'd been of late, it wouldn't work, this time. Her pain was still so raw, and having sex wouldn't fix it. It wouldn't even mask it; she'd spent too much time crying, feeling guilty, berating herself for prioritizing Ryan, for letting loose with Chester—and now Chester was here, to lure her into more sex?

"No," she said, sitting up straight, pulling the covers to her chin. She shooed him, shoved him, indicated she wanted him out of the bed. "I don't know why you're here but you can't be here, Chess. I can't... no, no sex, I can't do it, I'm too..."

"Yeah, I know." Chester didn't budge, but he didn't make a move to remove any clothing, either. He caressed her cheek and offered her a weak, tired smile. "I'm not here for that. This is a friend intervention."

"Friend intervention?" Coralie's gaze concentrated on Delilah's bedroom door. "Did the girls call you?"

Chester snorted. "Absolutely not. But Delilah," he motioned to Coralie's door, behind which was the kitchen, "let me in when I got here and explained why I'd come."

Coralie's eyebrows drew in. So it wasn't as early as she'd thought? "Great. Now explain it to me, then."

"Your Facebook post." Chester grabbed one of her pillows and propped it up under his arm. "First off, the fact that I saw it—you'd unblocked me. And its tone... hun, I didn't like it. Beautiful lyrics, yes, but my heart hurt reading them. It was obvious to me that something happened, and it bugged me to not know. Selfish, yeah, but I can't help worrying about you. About us. As friends, as lovers... I worried about what those lyrics meant."

Coralie's tension diffused, but her frown didn't melt from her face. "They were written for Ryan. And for Michael. I... I'm sorry, Chess."

His expression shifted from worry to pain; she could see it. A flinch, a lowering of the lips, a quick, pinched look about him, before he shook it off and returned to worry. "So you chose one of them. And something went wrong? What happened?"

"I fucked up." She felt the tears coming back, and wasn't positive she'd be able to stop them. How could Chester compartmentalize with such ease? She'd admitted to him, in so few words, that he wasn't her choice, and still he was there, beside her, basically begging her to confide in him. How? "Michael knows the truth, and said he wanted to talk about it, but he hasn't contacted me about that yet. And Ryan? Ugh."

Chester reached for her wrist, but didn't squeeze it. "Did he hurt you?"

"Not physically." Coralie winced. "Well, I guess you could say physically, because he shattered my heart. I went to him, as planned; to see if when I woke up I felt anything specific. And I was convinced, Chess. So convinced that if I saw him before he woke that I'd know it was him. But..."

Chester's eyes were wide with interest. "He wasn't?"

"He wasn't there. When I woke up. He was... in his living room, arguing with his not-so-ex-wife." She shuddered, remembering Gemma's voice filling her ears, and Ryan's impatience. Ryan's words, Ryan's lies. Ryan. "They weren't separated, and she's moving here with her kids to be with him."

"What the fuck?" Chester clapped a hand to his mouth. "He's a pig! I mean, I knew that, but—"

"—you could have said something!" Coralie broke from his grasp and scowled at him. "If you had a hunch why didn't you say so?"

"And come off as trying to turn the tables in my favor? No." Chester tucked his hair behind his ears. Strands had come loose from his ponytail, and he was battling to keep them out of his face. "I hoped you'd figure it out on your own. And I'm sorry that you did in such a brutal way."

Coralie sniffled—the remembrance was bringing more tears to crowd at her lash-line. "It was brutal. And more brutal when I understood that all this time... it was Michael."

Again, Chester flinched; but he remained composed, calm, feigning neutrality. If he was wounded by her decision—and Coralie knew him enough to know that he was—he'd understood that now wasn't the moment to display his pain. "So he has your heart? You're sure of it?"

Coralie grimaced, and meant to move closer to Chester, to apologize—but he held out his hand, keeping her in her place. "Chess, I'm sorry. I care about you deeply, but it's him I have true feelings for."

"You don't need to apologize or explain. That's not why I'm here." He removed his hand and instead set it on Coralie's arm. "You said Michael wanted to talk about things?"

She nodded. "He said like mature adults, or something. He wants to hear my explanations which, let's be real, when someone cheats on you you're usually too blinded with rage to want to listen, right? I'm sure I blew it. He changed his mind. I stomped all over his heart and I'm so full of regret. And I haven't heard from him since he said that."

There was an odd yet peaceful serenity to Chester's behavior, his words. Coralie had just confessed he wasn't the one for her, but he was there, under her covers, rubbing her arm, offering her comfort. No, he wasn't the one—but he was an incredible and genuine friend that she was disappointed at having harmed with her indecisiveness.

"I'm a fuck-up," she muttered, dipping her chin. Tears streamed from her eyes, now; she couldn't bar them from falling, and didn't want to. She'd fought them too much already.

"You're not." Chester tilted her chin up and wiped her tears with the thumb of his other hand. "Never give up, Cora. Michael needs time. The way you've described him... he's a good guy, and he will hear you out. When he's ready. But have you told him that you're ready to talk? Because for all you know, he may be waiting for you to make the first move." He pulled her close and deposited a gentle kiss on her lips; not charged with lust or passion, but a sweet reminiscence, a tender gesture to soothe her. "People make mistakes, and sometimes they're forgiven because deep down, their hearts are good. Your heart is good, Cora. He knows that. So give him time."

Chester cuddled her for a while, then saw himself out, promising to check on her again soon. It was the easiest, least stressful kind of break-up she'd ever experienced, and one that left her with a slither of hope for her future.

She tossed the idea of texting Michael back and forth. Chester was right; she hadn't reached out, either. Michael couldn't guess what her situation was, and he was likely waiting for her to say something.

So before opting to get her ass out of bed and do something with her day, she plucked her phone from the nightstand.

CORALIE: Hey, I'm not sure if you still want to talk, but I'm ready and willing to explain myself, if you're ready and willing to listen.

She sent the message, set her phone back down, and stood up to stretch. If he answered, then she had a chance. And if he didn't... so be it, it wasn't meant to be, and she'd need to learn to move on. This was her fault, after all; her choices, her actions had gotten her there. She could cry all she wanted about a broken heart, but she'd broken it. And only she could mend it again.

♥♥♥