The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

It’s been days since Arrick left my room and I am barely functioning. I have moped around, either at home until my mom’s pandering efforts have driven me mad, or at Emma, or Leilas’, who are equally suffocating me. Jake is my only respite, with his shrugged off chill and his ‘life’s too short’ attitude. He tends not to dwell on ‘matters’ with me and just lets me hang out. He’s keeping me sane, while everyone else is mothering me to insanity.

I’m restless, listless, antsy, and just need to let off some steam to feel normal for one night. Every part of my body is screaming to go out and get blind drunk and numb for a few hours, but I’m stopping myself from going down that route again. Really trying to behave, listening to my counselor, whom I saw this morning for the first time again, and trying like crazy to keep my head above water. My hearts bruised and in pain but I’m handling it. I know why I feel this way, and it’s making a difference to how I deal with it.

James, my therapist, suggested keeping a journal to combat these feelings, suggested I take up a hobby or fitness regime to help with the urges to just drown my sorrows. He is fully on board with me taking some sewing classes in town that interest me, and maybe trying my hand at a seamstress course at the local evening college. He thinks a focus will help me move on in life, help me find my path, and for once, my parents aren’t criticizing my choice of following fashion studies. I think they realize it’s better than the life I’ve been living.

Arrick has tried to call me numerous times; I have no idea why he would even try. There is nothing he can say to fix this, and I’m blanking his calls as talking to him will only make this harder to accept. He’s back in the city, news going on about his fight tonight against some well-known pro that could really boost his career, and I’ve already decided I’m going to go to bed and ignore it. While everyone else here gathers at Jake’s house to watch it on his ‘humongous’ ridiculous screen in his cinema room. The families always like to gather for ‘notable events’ like this. Huntsbergers and Carreros, the two halves of my life.

this, have read enough ‘How to heal your heart’ articles in women’s magazines in the last few days to arm myself with every tool women use to get over a broken heart, and am fully committed to doing so. I want my life back, my

this two-year funk which has driven me to this place. I’m being productive, taking matters into my own hands and trying to prove to myself that I can

ever feel able to have them back. And there is a lot! I never realized, until now, just how often he used to buy me things. Stuffed animals or little trinkets, or gave me meaningful keepsakes like birthday cards with whole paragraph messages inside, letters he sent me when he went to London for four whole weeks and I told him I wanted postcards and ‘snail mail’ as well as texts and calls. He sent me a daily postcard with an attached breakdown of what he was doing on paper, in an envelope with whatever souvenir of his day he’d found. I have café napkins, a bottle cap, a Big Ben keyring, and other random things from

and hoping the break will help me sort my brain out. Instead of all-out deleting him from everything, which would also mean removing thousands of pictures. It would feel wrong to click unfriend or block on things he has always

joint group of four children, between Leila and Emma, has been enough to exhaust me most afternoons. The twins, Noah, and Wiley are only