Saving Her Billionaire

Chapter 7

Phoebe was depressed but there was nothing out of the ordinary about this these days. It had been a month since that fateful night she had met Nate, the same night she had had the best s*x of her life with him, and the same night he had run off saying things that did not make any sense whatsoever. And during this month, Phoebe had been very depressed indeed.

Phoebe wondered what it had been that had made him feel like he needed to run away. She wondered if it had been something she had done or something she had said. For some reason she doubted this, because, up until that point he had seemed completely comfortable. She had regularly made sure, over the course of the night, everything that was happening had happened according to his desires, she had wanted the night to be good for him because that was just the kind of person she was.

She wondered what life would have been like over the past month if Nate had not run off like that. She wondered what things would have been like if he had stayed that night. She wondered if things would have been different even after he had left if she had had the chance or foresight to ask for his number, because now that he was gone Phoebe had no idea how to get in contact with him.

She had been depressed for a month now, but Phoebe was very good at navigating the treacherous terrain of a depressed mind. She had been depressed before, and even though the depression she was feeling right now was worse than anything she had felt before she was still able to do her job properly and help the people that she was counseling.

Nobody knew that she was depressed, not even her best friend and roommate Stephanie. When Phoebe had gotten home the next morning, Stephanie had been very excited. She had wanted to know all of the details about what Phoebe had done with Nate. She had wanted to know every aspect of the s*x, everything about what he had said and how he had behaved.

Phoebe had lied through her teeth. She had not wanted Stephanie to know that Nate had just randomly run off because she knew that this would just make Stephanie feel bad for her, and if there was one thing that Phoebe would absolutely not be able to stand right now it was the thought of her best friend feeling sorry for her. She simply couldn’t bear the thought of Stephanie doing anything out of sympathy. She had had enough of that.

After her break up with her first boyfriend, everyone had been sympathetic because Phoebe had been used for s*x and then tossed aside as if she wasn’t worth anything anymore. After her second break up, everybody had been sympathetic because of the fact that Phoebe had just gotten out of an extremely abusive relationship. After Mark, everybody had been sympathetic because Phoebe had truly been in love for the first time in her life but this love had not ended up turning into anything concrete or serious. And, of course, after Ruth everyone had been sympathetic because they had thought that Phoebe had finally found somebody that she could spend the rest of her life with, but this had ended up not turning into anything as well because the two partners in the relationship could not reconcile the fact that one of them wanted children and the other did not want any children at all.

All in all, Phoebe was well acquainted with sympathy because of her love life. In fact, sympathy was the one thing that she could always expect as the end result of her affairs, because it was the only thing that was always there. She was extremely depressed now, but she simply couldn’t stand the thought of more sympathy, once again as the result of her love life. She couldn’t bare Stephanie thinking that Phoebe had, once again, put herself in a situation where she was vulnerable, only to have her heart broken because she chose to give it to the wrong person yet again.

She did not want this to define her. More than that, Phoebe was embarrassed. She was embarrassed because she had given herself away so freely. She had allowed Nate into the intimate part of her mind so readily, as if she had never been hurt before. Why had she done this? After all that she had been through, why had Phoebe let someone in so easily?

She had been hurt so many times before. The s*x that she had given her first boyfriend, the emotional dependency she had given her second one. She had regretted even the two good relationships that she had enjoyed in her life. She did not think that this would ever happen again, simply because after she and Ruth had broken up, Phoebe had decided that she would never again let anyone in.

She resented Stephanie a little for doing this to her. She resented the fact that her best friend had coaxed her into letting herself go. After resenting her for a few days, Phoebe realized that this resentment was utterly uncalled for, because Stephanie had not asked her to give herself away emotionally, she had just been trying to cheer her friend up by taking her out and helping her have a good time. She had just been trying to be a good friend, and she was a good friend. She was loving and caring and kind and she did not deserve Phoebe’s resentment because it had been these very things about her, things that Phoebe loved immensely, that had made her take Phoebe out, that had made her invest so much of herself in Phoebe’s happiness. She had just been loving her by taking her out, it was not her fault that Phoebe had allowed herself to get hurt in the process.

If there was anyone to blame right now, it was Phoebe herself. She had been the one to allow herself to get so emotionally involved. She had been the one that had failed to take into account the fact that she barely knew Nate, that he could be anybody, behave any way, and she would not be able to predict it because people are not open books. You simply cannot know what someone is like based on how they are behaving during your very first meeting with them. You simply can’t know what someone is like based on the first few things they say.

This was where the self loathing began. Phoebe did not want it there, of course, but there was nothing really that she could do about it. It was a part of her. It was the end result of her allowing herself to become so intimate with somebody after the very first time that she had met them. It was her own fault for allowing herself to feel like she could trust somebody simply because they were sad, and simply because they were smart enough to analyze her and discover a couple of things about her.