The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

Chapter 176

I wake up in bed with Arrick wrapped around me, still fully dressed, on top of the sheets and holding me tight, with his face against my cheek. He’s asleep and I can tell by his messy appearance that he crawled in with me as soon as he walked in the door. He still has his shoes on, and his suitcase is propped against the bedroom door with his jacket laid over the top.

I fell asleep and didn’t wake, so it’s like I only spoke to him minutes ago, when in reality, I have lost whole days already. The painkillers the doctor gave me must have knocked me out cold, to not even wake when he got on the bed. I have no clue how long it’s been since he left here. I watch his slow even breaths, oblivious to my being awake, afraid to move for a moment.

He must have got in the early hours and even though it feels good to wake up in his arms, I get an instant searing of pain when I look at his innocent, vulnerable face. Peacefully out cold and devoid of all expression, he looks so young suddenly. So undeserving of what he has come home to, when I know how much he wanted this.

I trace his smooth straight eyebrow gently, that perfect bone structure of a handsome face and the shadows of his stubble on the surface of olive skin. He’s dead to the world, face relaxed, yet I can tell he’s been suffering. He looks pale, dark shadows where they never are and his whole appearance seems off. He looks like the guy that welcomed me home in New York after I had been missing all night; broken, crumpled, and devastated.

It hits me hard making everything inside of me ache with a weariness and I move away from him, unsure how the hell to react. How to be what he needs right now.

I take a moment for the reality of why he is home to hit me, and much like a sucker punch it gets me in the gut before that good old numb runs straight after and saves me from the crushing pain I keep expecting. I lay for a moment, brain waking up fully and listen to the noise around us. The low mumble of traffic beginning outside in the streets and birds off in the trees calling out to alert us to a rare sunnier

day. Paris is nothing like New York when it comes to sound and even though it’s not totally quiet, it feels painfully so.

I move to disentangle myself from him, he’s too hot and I need to sit up and get some air. I need to get these feelings of panic and fear, of guilt, under control now that I have to face him, but my movement stirs him.

“Sophs?” He breathes my name into my hair and tightens his hold on me momentarily. Catching hold and squeezing me protectively. I hold still, hold my breath and will myself to be stronger than this. Arrick in pain is not something I know how to deal with, it’s not something I have ever really had to fix. He’s always the stable one, the rock, the emotionally calm and capable one that I need to lean on. All text © NôvelD(r)a'ma.Org.

“I’m awake.” I finally answer, sounding a lot less alien and yet still weird. I pull his arms off to give myself space and slide to sit up. Needing to gather myself away from him. Arrick rubs his face, opens his eyes, and stifles a yawn before blinking up at me with hazy eyes that are fighting between being green and hazel and my stomach drops.

He looks like a guy whose world just came crashing down and not at all my smooth manicured Carrero. His eyes have lost their sparkle and as he wakens himself fully to look up at me, I can tell he probably broke down at some point; there’s a redness to his eyes and a faraway look. I turn away quickly, for a second as the force of how much I don’t want to see him this way hits me. I’m not used to it. I don’t know if I can handle him as broken and hurt as I usually am.

“Hey, beautiful.” He tries for a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes and he clumsily pulls himself to sit up to mirror my pose as I lean against the headboard and pull the covers to try and get comfy.

“When did you get in?” straight to nothing conversation and avoiding the obvious. I don’t want to talk about it or see him upset. I don’t think I can handle that from him. I never knew it would feel this way when he got here and now, I am wishing I never made him come home.

“Around five am. I didn’t want to wake you. You seemed pretty out of it.”

I glance at the bedside clock and see it’s still early, before eight so he has probably not really slept much at all. Three hours max

There is a long drawn out silence between us and then he shifts and turns to me and scoops my hand in his, cradling it and trying to angle his face to look at me properly.

“We need to talk about it, Sophs. All I thought about was you all the way home, driving myself crazy with worry. Longest trip of my life.” He looks pensive and uptight, but I shake my hand free and slide out of bed to go sort myself in the bathroom. I can feel a discomfort from my pad and know it’s probably soaked through from sleeping all night. I don’t really want him to see me changing that. It’s another stabbing reminder of our reality.

“We should maybe think about packing up and leaving.” I ignore his request and flinch when I walk into the bathroom. Like a dull punch to the stomach, almost like this room is now cursed and it’s painful to walk in here. I avoid looking at the floor, even though Janetta has scrubbed this whole room clean and head to the toilet. My stomach twisted and my heart is aching, my head however is cotton wool and I move fast to get the hell back out of this room as soon as I can.

I do what I need to do and walk back into the bedroom to see he hasn’t moved except to sit up properly and kick his shoes off, and sits raking his fingers through his hair and rubbing his sleep addled face. He looks disheveled, sagging a little and I am caught with a hard lump in my throat that threatens to choke me. Tears prickle behind my eyes and I blink them away fast.

“You’re running and hiding.… You can’t just ignore this.” He points out to me and I shrug it away. I know what I do and how I react when life throws me a curve ball, this isn’t only that though. I’ve never had to be his stability, his healer… I have never been the one who did unimaginable damage to him that I cannot rectify with a kiss.

Until now.

“I think maybe, I want to go home today… If we can get a flight.” Trying so hard to ignore any talk of this and as I wander around the room to pull clothes out, hearing him sigh harder. Trying to not give into the emotions swirling in my gut and keep my head together.

“You need to rest, stay in bed a few days first… We can talk about leaving later. Sophie! Come here and talk to me.” He holds out his hand as though gesturing me to take it, but I push it away as I walk by to the dresser.

“I’m okay to fly so I want to leave. We can leave the lists of stuff I want sent home with Janetta, I already did all that in the past two weeks. I just want to go.” I have my mind set on one goal and I don’t mean New York city. I mean the Hamptons, to see my Mom… To see Emma. People not affected like he is, people who might be able to heal him as much me, because I have no clue how to even start.

He has no clue how much I hated on this pregnancy and blamed it in his absence, he doesn’t know that I caused this and made it go. He would hate me if he did and never forgive me.

Arrick gets up and comes to me instead, catching me by the waist and tries to pull me to him, but I resist. Riled by the Spanish inquisition of questions and irritated that he is following me around harassing me. I need him not to do this right now.

“I’m not in a touching mood, Arrick.” I try to shrug free but for once he ignores it and holds onto me a little tightly. Suffocatingly so.

“I know you’re confused and you’re hurting… You didn’t want this, I get that, but it’s okay to feel sad that this happened. It’s okay to cry about this. God knows I did on the flight, Sophs. It was still our baby, even if it only lived a few short weeks. You need to grieve and take it easy.” He’s trying to be the guy he always is and be strong for me, but he’s failing. His words are etched with sadness, his whole demeanor screams of a guy who is struggling to act okay and it’s making me crazily trapped.

I did this, me, to him, of all people.

The guilt is like a heavy weight, pushing me to the floor, making my lungs constrict painfully. I can’t look at him, listen to him for fear that I may break into a thousand pieces at how much I have hurt him.

I don’t need it right now. I want to get out of here and leave all this behind us for once and for all. To run and get away from it. To forget all of it and start over.

That’s what I do, that’s how I face things, right? I run, I push it down, all away to the back of my mind and start my life on a new foot, trying so hard to put it all in the past.

Paris has been one year long life destroyer, and I am so done with this city.

I shrug out of his arms and move away.

“I’m fine…I want to go home… Right now.” I sound cold and unemotional. I move to my wardrobe and haul out my case. He watches me with that stubborn jut of the chin and determined air and slumps down on the edge of the bed in a defeatist way that is so unlike him.

“Not today… I need to sleep, eat and get my head together. You need to let this sink in and rest. You can pack if you like but we are going nowhere until I have taken you to the hospital myself, Sophs.”

“No!” I spin on him in fear and anger, stupidly reacting without knowing why it’s that emotion that spikes to the forefront. “For once can you do what I ask of you, what I need… To go home. No hospital, no delays, no heart to hearts. I just need for you to book us tickets and get the hell out of here without a fucking argument!” I glare at him and he silently stares right back at me. Two stubborn heads locked in a wordless war and neither move. So much translates in those seconds that seem to draw to minutes and I can almost feel my heart pulsing in my throat with the tension of the atmosphere. If I wanted to console him then I am going about it the wrong way.

There’s a tiny flicker of his muscle on his jawline and I visually see the Arrick wall go up too. Like me, he has his self-defense system and I just initiated it. Cool, calm, and hidden below the surface; he takes a slow breath and stands up very purposefully and deliberately. Like a shield being lifted or some sort of protective layer and the softer hurt Arry disappears behind the façade.

I’m sorry, baby.

“I’ll book flights to JFK if that’s what you need.” His tone is even, emotionless and husky. He walks to his case and pulls his jacket up to fish for his cell, avoiding my eyes and I’m immediately remorseful. He’s gone inwards, at a time we should be holding onto one another, but I can’t do it. I can deal with him better this way, selfish as it is. It’s all I can cope with right now.

“And a puddle jumper to the Hamptons direct from there… I mean my home, Arry. I want to see my mom.”

I have no idea why she is the one standing forefront in my mind. I’ve never needed her this way at all, not even when I first learned to trust and love her. It’s always been him, but I guess I know she will handle this a lot better than he will and be what I need. A calm stable person for me to lean on. She’s a doctor, a general practitioner who has dealt with all sorts of stuff like this, a million times before. She will take care of me and know what to do. She will know how to help him too.

Arrick hasn’t said anything about my Hampton request, he’s frowning, knowing fine well not wanting to head back to our pad in the city is not normal for me. Not normally someone who runs to home when I need someone, I usually run to him and wherever he is.

I see the flinch of hurt in his expression, but he pushes it down further and that posture and mask of Arrick Carrero kicks in fully. Like a guy who has no cares in the world if you don’t scratch too deep.

It kills me a little bit that I have made this side of him come out to play. It’s not the side he normally wants to give me but for now it’s what I need. No talking, no pain, no facing anything; just go home.

I’m antsy and irritated as I fold and unfold clothes into the open case and when he walks out to the Livingroom, I feel a little lighter. His presence is making me suffocated, like a lingering dark cloud. A few minutes pass silently before I hear the scrape of a chair that signals him moving around.

“Flights are at ten pm tonight. I’m going to the kitchen.” He calls out coldly, his voice betraying nothing and I stop what I am doing and sink onto the bed with a sigh of hopelessness and relief that he did what I wanted. Knowing him he will go stay in there for a while and take it out of making food or doing something dumb like organizing the refrigerator. It’s how he deals with his messy head.

I don’t know how to deal with mine.

I can’t fix us until I fix me. I need to take one step at a time and get through today. Get home, get around people who love me and normal life. Arrick will be okay, we will be okay. I need a little breathing space to deal with all of it.

Just get back to New York, get back to normal and it will all get better.

***

We walk into my family home, after a tense flight where we didn’t talk much, following a whole day of sitting in either silence or with the TV blaring to kill the emptiness. Arrick has given up trying to talk to me and we are both stuck in our own little bubbles of despair, worlds apart.

The part of me that should be terrified about how we are being right now is not interested. I’m so wrapped up in my own confused feelings and thoughts that I have no space for his. I t held myself together long enough to get here and now that we are, the same overwhelming weight sits on my shoulders.

It’s not that I don’t want him to touch me, really, it’s that letting him close makes me feel like a shit human being. I can’t stop seeing the agony behind his mask and I don’t want to deal with it.

I tried to will myself to turn and talk to him to ease some of the tension, but on the plane, I caught his eyes mist up as he subtly watched a woman across the aisle feeding a baby. I felt like I had been slapped in the face and I recoiled to my own side and curled up to stare out of the window instead.

He maybe didn’t want kids either and the shock and knee jerk reaction made that clear when we took those tests, but somewhere along the way he changed his mind and fully embraced that he was going to be a daddy. All while I was tantrumming and acting out. Watching him get emotional over some stranger’s baby made me feel sick to my stomach, and I can’t talk to him right now.

The last two weeks, he kept telling me to take it easy, eat better stop getting so upset and I didn’t listen. I kept fighting with him, acting like a spoiled kid. Cursing and resenting the life in me for what it was ruining and never thought beyond myself. I gave it a hostile environment, where it couldn’t thrive, like some toxic girl who pretty much pushed it out of her own body with my lack of love.

Except… Eight hours to stare out a window at passing clouds feeling everything as it started to un- numb made me realize… I didn’t ‘not’ want it either. I didn’t have time to get used to the idea, and now I have no choice.