Page 21 of Blinded By Hate

I don't even know the kind of person Hayden is right now.

“I don’t know.”

Nine

Present

“What’s going on with you? You’ve had almost an entire week to complete this column Jaclyn, and I haven’t seen anything,” Jules says while rubbing her temples. “I don’t understand what’s going on with you and this interview. It shouldn’t be hard to write a column about some cocky fighter.”

But what Jules doesn’t know is that I’ve replayed that moment Hayden looked down at me with a familiar softness in his eyes.

She has no clue that he is all I’ve thought about this entire week. I’ve been stalking his socials, going to therapy every other day, closing my eyes, and pretending that he is holding me when in reality I’m just alone in my room.

It’s so hard to try and focus on this column when I’m too busy focusing on how to get Hayden out of my mind. I feel so pathetic, crying in the shower about him when he is probably not thinking about me at all. My mind is yelling at me for being stupid thinking he still thinks about me the way I think about him.

“I’m sorry. Things have just been rough for the past few weeks. It’s not an excuse, I know but things have just been hard.”

“Is everything okay?” Jules asks, with concern filling her face.

I nod my head and force a smile on my face. “Yea, things with Junior have just been hard. He isn’t making this month easy on me. But it’s fine. I’ll finish it right now,” I assure her but she still gives me a concerned look.

Jules worries about Junior because of his VSD and because we still haven’t gotten the chance to do surgery for him yet because our health insurance doesn’t cover it.

Problems after problems after problems.

But the meds help him.

But for how long?

Jules nods her head. “Okay. If you can’t finish it today, that’s fine but I need to send this column to our editors by the middle of next week. If you can’t handle writing it, tell me before then.”

I shake my head at her. “I’ll finish it right now, Jules. Don’t worry.” I smile before standing up.

I leave her office and make my way back to mine.

Patience said to keep my mind off Hayden and I should be keeping myself busy. But it’s hard when all I do is take care of Junior, who is Hayden’s son, and then go to work, where I have to write a column on Hayden.

Everything in my life seems to revolve around him. It’s fucking PATHETIC.

I feel so stupid for thinking of him and it’s stressing me out constantly. The nightmares are still there but Hayden is in them, saving me from the black hooded man and then telling me to promise him to not leave.

I wipe a tear that has fallen from my eye. I didn’t even realize I was crying or even overthinking so much until now.

I sit on my chair and rest my head on the desk.

I just need a break.

From work, from him, from everything.

I raise my head and wipe my eyes before shaking my hands to get the nerves out. I place my hands on the keyboard and stare at the screen in front of me.

“Hayden Night…”

That’s all I’ve been able to start. The rest of the sentence would just go on talking about our history. Kind of like my own little story about him which I never thought of doing until now.

The sound of my office door opening makes me flinch before looking at the door. “Hey,” Brandon says as he walks in and closes the door behind him. He sits on the chair in front of my desk. “What are you doing?”

“You couldn’t have knocked?” I raise an eyebrow at him.