They sat on the beach in each other’s arms for a long while. Cassidy did her best to comfort him without being pushy, but she wanted him to confide in her.
“Alex, please talk to me,” she whispered in his ear and wiped away his tears.
He took a deep breath and pulled away from her.
“Why did you follow me,” he asked coldly. “Why are you here?”
His coldness took her by surprise, she didn’t know what to say.
“I’m here because I care about you. I want you to talk to me..”
“That’s not what you want,” he cut her off as he got up and stood in front of her with his back to her.
“Alex, what’s wrong with you?” she asked on the verge of tears. She didn’t know what she had done to cause his anger and bitterness towards her all of a sudden. She got up and placed her hand on his shoulder.
“Cassidy, what do you want from me??!” he raised his voice as he turned to face her.
His sudden shriek made her jump.
“I told you, I don’t want anything from you,” she replied, tears starting to spill down her cheeks.
He stared at her, watching the teardrops fall down her face. It broke his heart to see her hurting, to know that he caused it. He wanted so badly to pull her into his arms and hold her. He wanted to tell her how he felt about her, he wanted to reach out to her, but he couldn’t, he didn’t know how. He also knew that if he was hurting her now, he would do it again eventually, but much worse. He couldn’t do that to her, she meant too much to him. He turned his back to her again and stuffed his hands in his pockets.
“Please just go away, leave me alone.”
“Alex, you don’t mean that..” she cried, placing her hand on his back.
“Yes I do, this isn’t gonna work out between us, I’m no good for you Cassidy. Plus, I already have a girlfriend. She’ll be coming back soon. I won’t have time for you then.”
“I know you don’t mean that, please don’t shut me out..”
“Don’t you understand English??!” he yelled as he turned to face her once again. “I don’t care about you!!”
“Stop it!” she yelled back at him. “I know you care about me! And I’m not letting you push me away after YOU pulled me into your life! This is all YOUR fault! This is exactly why I didn’t put a return address on my letter! Damn you, Alex!”
They stood staring at each other for a minute.
“I should have never done it..” he said in a low voice.
She walked right up to him and pointed her finger at him.
“You’re right, you shouldn’t have, but you did. You know what else? I feel sorry for you. You bitch and moan about how you’re in this miserable relationship and you want unconditional love. Well, here it is, staring you right in the face, reaching out to you and you’re pushing it away! You may have money, you may have fame, you may even have short-term happiness, but when it’s all gone, you’re gonna be all alone. You’re going to be miserable for the rest of your life and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself. You’ll have to live with yourself knowing that you had what you wanted and needed but YOU pushed it away”.
He turned way from her again, he knew she was right, it just hurt to hear it.
She moved closer to him wanting to finish what she was saying.
“You know something, I’LL get over this, I’ll move on, but you..you won’t because you shut everyone out. At least I can open up to people, I’m not afraid of love. That’s the reason I feel sorry for you. Have a nice life, Alex.”
She turned and walked away from him.
He turned around and watched her. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but nothing would come out. He desperately wanted to go after her, but he couldn’t, this was for the best. He was trying to protect her. He turned back around and sat down in the sand.
She reached the boardwalk where Marcus was standing, then stopped and turned around to see where AJ was. She had hoped that she had gotten through to him and he would come after her, but he didn’t.
“Maybe he really doesn’t care about me,” she whispered to herself. "Maybe it was all just a game".
As she walked past Marcus, tears were falling down her cheeks. She turned to him and gave him a half hearted smile.
“Take good care of him”.
With that, she walked away with Marcus staring after her. He then turned to look at AJ sitting in the sand.
“That dumbass,” he whispered and headed in his direction.

Cassidy got back to her room and plunked herself down on the bed and sobbed. She couldn’t believe AJ had been so mean to her. The things he said broke her heart. She calmed down and decided to call for some room service then went to take a long, hot bath.
“Thank God I’m leaving tomorrow,” she said aloud as got out of the tub a little while later and dried herself off.
She put her robe on and walked into the bedroom. She opened her suitcase and started putting her clothes in it. There was a knock at the door. Thinking it was room service she opened the door only to find AJ standing on the other side.


Chapter 14
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