The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

It kills me that I can love her this much and was stupid enough to give that up, to give her up. It’s so black and white in the clear
light of my brain defogging and how fucking dumb I am. It was never about what my heart wanted; it was always about what was
best for everyone else’s.
I don’t want Natasha; I don’t think I ever really did. I want Sophie. If I’m being honest then I’ve always wanted her, needed her.
It’s why I could never ignore the two a.m. cries for help. It’s part of my soul to be there for her to fall on, to depend on, to call, and
lean on. I grew up for her and became her rock, gave her that safe space to grow and heal and kept the world at bay so it didn’t
touch her. I created our bubble together so Sophie could thrive and feel secure, enjoy life without fear and I always told myself it
was because I never had a kid sister and she just screamed out for protection. So precious, so angelic and I wanted to give her
that.
No one is doing that for her now. Who can replace what I was in her life? Who’s there for her when she needs a hug, when she
needs someone to pick her up? No one, because I know her. She won’t let anyone close. It took me so much work to edge even
a little nearer and took years to have her fully rely on me.
I should be there. I’m the one who was always meant to bandage her wounds, wipe away her tears. She trusted me and me
alone, to be the one to see deep inside of her, touch her before anyone else was allowed to. Hug her before even her own mom
got to. All of that didn’t get handed to me easily, I worked hard to be close to her, to pull her out of darkness, being careful and
patient and reliable, because I was drawn to her from the first second I met her. The overwhelming need to be her hero and save
her from monsters and nightmares pushed me to never give up on her, no matter how hard she got to deal with. Sophie let me in
for a reason, fate brought us together, and I fought it all the way, afraid to see the truth which is now overwhelming me and
staring me blankly in the face.
In the weeks that I haven’t been her protector, then who has? Who has been taking care of my girl? Who’s been loving her in the
way I was always meant to?
It’s a pain worse than death to realize that I did this to her. That she’s been alone all this time, hating me, hurt by me, and yet
knowing her, suffering alone. She won’t turn to those she loves for support ... that was always me. I was her rock. Just as she
was my reason for staying sane and grounded and getting my act together.
I didn’t just sever a friendship to save a relationship I feel obliged to be in. I let the girl who loves me and needs me, walk away,
alone, to suffer, alone, so I could save face and not let everyone down or break the heart of a girl I don’t even love.

I let the girl I do love go. And I do... I love her. I really, really, fucking love her. I’m in love with Sophie, in all ways, on all levels.
Half my soul and completely dependent on her for survival kind of love. The kind that makes you walk across oceans and face
fire just to be with them. Loved her that way all along and yet I failed to prove it to her or be there when she truly needed me
because I couldn’t face it, too afraid to see it. Failed to tell her I loved her when it’s the only thing she asked of me. It’s all she has
ever asked for ... Me! My attention, my adoration, my love.
Staring at a white horse prancing around on screen, feeling the dampness hit my cheek as the realization hits me that this is the
problem right here. I didn’t let a girl I care about walk away. I pushed the girl I am crazy in love with, out the door stupendously,
for someone I don’t. Because of a lot of stupid shit that I felt weighed up to so much more importance than how I really feel about
her.
Behind all of it was my own cowardice and fear. Afraid to love Sophie, because all along I ‘ve known how huge it is, how much
power she has over me and I ran from her when she offered me everything. Scared of the depth of love I have for her and what it
can do to me, my life, and my whole world. I ran to safety in the old and familiar, hid behind excuses rather than faced the
possibility of changing everything and really feeling everything she was offering me.
I don’t love Natasha. I don’t think I ever really did, not now I can recognize that what I feel for Sophie is how love is meant to feel.
It’s guilt, it’s a sense of duty and loyalty. But it’s not love. I could never feel about Tasha the way I feel about Sophs.
Sophie makes me feel like I’m going crazy without her, she brings emotions out in me that no one else has ever been able to and
when we fight it’s a thin line between love and hate and all out insanity, because she cuts me deeper than anyone else can. She
can wound with the simplest of things and her absence is unbearable. Looking back at our whole friendship, she’s always been
able to wrap me around her little finger, drive me from craziness to happiness, to get under my skin and pull my head in all
directions. Control my moods with a smile or a frown and leave me listless and anxious when she’s mad at me.
Didn’t I learn anything when she cut me off once before?
I don’t function when there is no Sophie. There’s only darkness and emptiness like someone took all the light and life out of the
world.
I am so in love with her. Marriage and babies and forever kind of love for her.
It hits me like a slap in the face and I claw my cell back from the table, brain on auto pilot, mind reacting. Panic searing through
me at a rate of noughts that I let myself be blind sighted by my own fear and stupidity and made the worst mistake of my life in

losing her. Living in a zombie state because I have a broken heart, at my own hands, from running from the love of my life. For
making her leave me and that everything since, has been one long bad nightmare that I can’t wake up from.
Such an idiot. I need to talk to her, I need to hear her voice again, to tell her I’m still here, that she still has me, that I love her, the
way she loved me if she even still does. I need to end this agony for both of us and reach out to her. I want to know that she isn’t
alone and dealing with shit by herself. I want to hug her more than anything right now and get back all that I threw away. I’ve
waited and waited and now, I don’t want to do that anymore. I need to see her again. To feel her against me just for a second,
one more time, and back track. Fix what I broke and do whatever she asks of me to mend this.
Twenty-eight days is an eternity and I can’t do this anymore. I can’t leave her alone anymore. It kills me to think about it, to see
her out there, standing on her own two feet. She wasn’t built to be alone and I can’t bear the thought of it. Not now that I know
what I feel for her is real, all-consuming, and inescapable.
How can I continue to live my life without her in it?
I scroll until I find her number, the call from that day and hit the icon without questioning it anymore. I haven’t tried to call her for a
couple of weeks because I didn’t know what to say or how to talk to her. I thought space was what I should give her. Holding it to
my ear as my hands begin to tremble and I have no clue what I even want to say to her. I only want to reach out to her and
somehow tell her.
It beeps three times and cuts off even though I expected it would, it’s done it every time I tried in beginning, but there’s a part of
me that hoped she would have unblocked my cell at some point if I left her alone and Jake told her I wouldn’t try. That over time
she would maybe want me to call her again. I do it again and get the same decisive noise, ripping my heart from my chest cruelly
and twisting it back up before ramming it in my stomach. Praying that there must be a way to connect to my precious girl once
more. I need her so much in this moment, now that my minds clear and my focus is set.
My voice catches in my throat and I call Jake instead, trembling, head a mess with so much running through, it feels like I’ve
been hit with a tidal wave as emotion wrack every cell of my body. He has her new apartment details in the city, he will know
where she is, be able to call her. He can tell me how to get hold of her. I know he’s been seeing her, making sure all her bills are
paid and I know she started school. Had to curb the urge to go there so many times or snoop his files for her address. Tried to
just give her space, tried to not bring her up in every conversation with him and accept that it was how it was, but not anymore. I
can’t keep living a lie.
It rings, and he isn’t long to answer.

“Hey, what’s up, kiddo?” Jake sounds tired, I can hear the kids in the background and know he’s at home. It’s late, almost eight
p.m. and I falter with a moment of doubt, knowing he isn’t going to be too pleased about this. I swallow the nerves, inhale and
just say it.
“I need to talk to her.” I blurt it out impulsively, emotion going haywire and my voice sounds gruff and shaky. I take a slow inhale
to calm myself, realizing my hands are trembling crazily now, but Jake only sighs, knowing exactly who I mean without question.
“She doesn’t want to hear from you, Arry... We’ve been through this.” Jake sounds pained, he knows I’ve been having a tough
time dealing with her absence, but he doesn’t think I should try and get hold of her while I’m with Natasha. If anything, he’s been
pissed at me for weeks, that I chose to fix this relationship... I guess I can see why now. He tried to tell me right from the start
that I needed to really evaluate my feelings and fuck everything else. He hasn’t been shy about being off with me, over all of it,
and a part of me wonders how he could see this long before I did.
“I need to talk to her, know how to find her.” the panic gripping my body escalates, like this sudden realization has finally hit me
and that I have left it so long that I need to be urgent. Before I lose any more of the slight hold I may still have on her. All I want
right now is just some sort of connection to her, her voice, anything. There’s a long strained pause as I hear my brother blow out
air and it ups my heart rate. He’s not the delaying type unless he’s choosing his words carefully.
“There’s someone else. I’m sorry, Arry.... I didn’t know how to tell you.” Jakes voice is hoarse, emotional, he sounds like he is as
devastated as me, but I cannot compute what he’s saying to me. Like he’s saying the words and a numb terrifying void opens up
in my chest, yet I don’t quite believe.
“What do you mean, there’s someone else?....... Sophie doesn’t let anyone close.” My voice breaks, heart crushing inside my
chest and breath escaping me fast. My mind scrambling to decipher the words he’s hitting me with and refusing to believe them
as every part of me tries to not self-combust in this moment.
“That’s why I know there’s someone else.... this guy. She’s with him a lot, every time I call her, he’s in the background. I think it’s
serious.” Jake’s voice trails off and I stare blankly at the TV screen in front of me, numb with the shock of what he’s telling me. I
can hear Jake’s raw pain, because he feels for me, he knows how this affects me. I guess it’s why he hasn’t told me until now.
Except I cannot let it filter in, numb shock taking over my reality and shielding me from the depth of how much this is breaking
me.
This is not happening.
It’s too late, I left it too late. She’s not mine anymore.

The weight of that hits me harder than any sucker punch I have ever endured in the ring, even through this surreal dream state. I
physically exhale and slump down, heart constricting badly and pain choking me. The thought of Sophie with some other guy
takes away the last blinkers that may have lingered and it nearly cripples me with jealousy, regret, and utter despair. I feel sick,
shaking with the realization that she moved on, because I forced her to.
I hate the thought of some other guy, being to her, what I was... what I should have been. It’s not how it’s supposed to be. She’s
mine, she’s always been mine... she stood in front of me and told me she loved me. She offered me all of her. It was mine for the
taking. It doesn’t get to be his.
“What do I do?” I croak out, unable to hold back the pain in my face, behind my eyes, consuming my brain. Tears blur my vision
and make it impossible to swallow through the razor blades caught in my throat. Mind consumed with how the hell I get her back.
How I find her and beg her to let me in. I’ll beat the shit out of him, whoever he is.
No one gets to be to my girl what I should be. I don’t lose her this way, not after everything. It was never part of the plan, to lose
her, my baby, my Sophabelle.
“Leave her to live her life.... You have Natasha... I mean you didn’t call and say, it’s over...so.........” Jake seems to be pointing out
the obvious and I nod numbly, slapped in the face by my own brother, sense coming back amidst the unbearable pain I’m in.
He’s right. I didn’t. I called him to reach out to her, yet I have a girlfriend who should be arriving at any minute and here I am,
trying to confess undying love to someone else.
I don’t deserve Sophie; I’m an idiot of the epic proportions and I can’t even sort my shit out before I desperately make attempts at
reaching for her. I’m an asshole and all of this is what I deserve for taking so long to cut through my own bullshit. She deserves
so much more than this. More than me.
I hear the elevator ping and realize Tasha’s almost here, dragging my head and focus back to the here and now, breathing hard,
willing myself to calm down even though my limbs have turned to Jell-O.
“I need to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.” I respond emptily, despite the turmoil of grief going off inside of me, too consumed with what
I am feeling to say anything else or hear more about what I do not want to be true. I hang up before he responds, before he gives
me a lecture, or just calls me out for being an, idiot, or an asshole. Before he crushes me with anymore truth that I’m not capable
of hearing.
Sophie is right. I am lame. It kills me inside that she’s not my Sophs anymore, but I can’t think about this right now. I stand up
when I hear the elevator ping again, pushing it all down expertly behind that face of coolness I excel at; amazed that in this much

agony, I can still even function, stand up, walk and still breathe.
While my whole body is giving up and my organs are struggling to sustain life, I somehow manage to act normal. The noise this
time indicating it’s hit my floor and I cradle my cell in my hand. Wiping my face with my sleeve in a bid to get ready to face her. I
have no idea what the hell I’m going to say or do. I can barely get my head together and I’m still in my sweats and tee and look
like I have been dragged through a bush. All I can do is concentrate on breathing as the internal turmoil tries to consume me.
All I can think about is what he said. There’s someone else...... My Sophs, has someone that isn’t me.
She walks in smiling, looking normal, upbeat, and calm Natasha. Carrying a bunch of roses that she obviously brought for the
apartment. She is forever trying to add her touches, make her mark, and yet... Sophie never tried, it just happened organically.
Sophie never ever tried to weld herself to me at all, it was always a natural thing, the two of us merging. Natasha tries so hard,
all the time, to connect us, connect to my space and my life. It’s partly why I resisted all this time and never moved to cohabiting
or talk of anything more.
Even watching her, walking in, and looking like she always does, it can’t even touch on the emptiness consuming me. She will
never be her. She isn’t her. She will never replace her. You can’t compare her in any way and no amount of time and trying will
ever make Tash be the girl I love and need. She has the wrong face, the wrong name, and the wrong eyes.
What have I done?
“Hey.” She smiles warmly, depositing the flowers on the counter and turns to me with a look of surprise on her pretty face. Taking
in my appearance and then my expression with a questioning frown that she is trying to conceal. “What’s wrong? You look
awful?”
She blinks at me, all dark soft eyes, and elfin features. Natasha is a pretty girl, she always has been, but if I am being honest
with myself. I only ever saw in her, someone who looked nothing like Sophie. A complete opposite in every way. Manufactured
on purpose.
It feels like everything is clicking clearly into place and with every little notch of the puzzle fitting, it highlights how much of a
complete jerk I am. How blind I have been to exactly where my heart has always been.
Sophs is the reason my life is falling to shit these past weeks. Sophie leaves and I fall apart. Isn’t that how it always goes? Why
didn’t I see this when I had time to change it?

“I...” Can’t even find the words to say this. No clue how to tell a girl that it’s over, when all she has done is try to make me love
her again, for weeks on end. Being the model of patience and understanding when really, I deserved nothing from her. My own
despair and grief right now, although hidden behind my mask, makes it impossible to feel guilt or anything enough to stop me
doing this. Consumed with my own pain and I have no more space for Natasha’s. It doesn’t matter that Sophie is out of my reach
now, that she’s moved on. None of that matters.
I can’t stay with a girl I don’t love and live in the memory of the one who got away. It’s not fair on her. I can’t give her something I
don’t have to give, and I have no need for her in my life anymore. Blinkers gone now; I know keeping on holding this together is
never going to work at all. I don’t have love to reinvest in her or work my way back to what I thought was happiness. It’s all a
ruse, smoke and mirrors and you cannot piece back together what wasn’t there in the first place.
Sophie took my heart when she left, and I don’t want it back. It’s hers, it always will be. I gave it to her in a kitchen so many years
ago, and whether she knows she possess it or not, is irrelevant. I know it belongs to her, only her, and always will.
I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out and I lost her in the process, but I won’t keep making this mistake here and now.
Natasha needs to be gone from my life so she can move on and find a guy who does actually love her.
“Don’t say it.... Don’t!” Natasha’s instantly distraught and the tears immediately hit her eyes, making me feel even shittier about
this whole thing but I still cannot muster enough care to not do this. I do not love Natasha. Guilt and duty won’t make me deviate
this time. My hearts shattered and I have nothing left to lose. She already walked out on me and took everything that mattered.
She knows what I’m thinking, she can see it written all over me and I can’t pretend anymore. I don’t have it in me to console her,
not now, if ever. There’s nothing left of me, but an empty gaping hole and endless ache where my heart has turned to dust.
“We just need time... it’s still early days, there is so much we still have to fight for.” She is floundering, panicking, and looking at
me like a wounded puppy. It doesn’t affect me the way Sophie’s tears always get to me, the way that look as she walked to her
room that night ripped me in two and left me awake all night in excruciating torment. Unable to think about anything else but her
in the next room, and how much I wanted to go to her. I should have followed my heart and done just that; I should never have
let her leave me.
How I could never see the difference between them before now, really dumbfounds me. Sophie being hurt is like having my
insides wrenched out from my body and slowly sliced and burned while still feeling it. Every sad face, bad mood, sulky frown had
complete control of my every mood and reaction. I could never walk off and leave it be without tormenting myself and going back
to her. She caused sleepless nights, loss of focus and utter depression without even trying.

Watching Natasha cry just makes me feel guilty, like a failure and a shitty person, but it doesn’t devastate me. It doesn’t end me
or rip me apart in a bid to stop her pain. It doesn’t make me want to fix it now either and take it all back, it makes me want her to
leave so I don’t have to deal with it. Irritated by her presence and highlights how much of a jackass I really am.
The thought of my girl out there crying, without me to catch her or wipe her tears, now that is enough to end me.
“I’m sorry... I can’t. Time isn’t going to fix this... I love Sophie. I made a mistake in trying to fix this with us.” I say it out loud, like I
really am still trying to test myself, but it makes it more painful. Because it comes out so easily; three little words I have always
had a hard time saying to Tasha, even in these past two years, to anyone. With Sophie, like everything with her... it’s natural, it
sits on my tongue and feels like I always should have been saying it and meaning it this way. Not the I love you, friend way, but
the right way, with real emotion and knowing it holds so much more weight. I wish I had said those words to her when I had the
chance and it twists my stomach even thinking about it. I had so many opportunities to say it to her.
My body hits a cold wave with her in my mind’s eye and the realization that this time, I might actually never get to say them to
her ever again.
“You’re a bastard.” Natasha screams at me and throws her bunch of flowers at me across the room, I dodge them slowly, not
even trying yet they still miss as they splay across the couch, knock over some of the decor on the surface and I watch as her
face contorts in pain, tears flowing free. I feel nothing anymore, just overwhelming sadness for the pain I inflicted on a girl who
had better aim and figured windows were a better way to get rid of flowers.
“I’m sorry.” It” s all I can say, because my mind is made up and my empathy is lacking. I’m tired of doing this, trying to pretend
this is where I want to be, when it’s not. It’s always a struggle for me, to face her, to be around her, to try and touch her.
Sex, kisses, holding hands and all the stuff that should be in a relationship, have always been a major sore point between us. I
was distant and cool from day one because deep down somewhere I always knew, even if I didn’t, she was a band aid, a
replacement for the girl I had to leave behind when I came here. An untouchable forbidden blonde that was never going to be
within my reach in the way I needed it, so I chose a non-Sophie, for a life and relationship because it was safe. There was no
boundary, no head mess, and no way in hell I could lose myself to her.
Because my head and heart was in the one place, I think it will always be, even if I never see her again.
Wherever Sophie is... that is where I will always be.