A Perfect Stitch

Chapter 55 | dining with memories

His laugh was a hysterical sound that rasped out of him when he threw his head back, pulling a fog of discomfort between us and exposing those hunted eyes of his which didn't seem to focus on anything in particular as they looked away.

I stayed quiet.

What trudged through Dwain's mind?

Perchance, obscured remembrances?

My thoughts conflicted with one another in ways my inner psyche couldn't even begin to comprehend.

A severer ache drew my nerves.

What do you say to someone who means a decade of joy to your life when they tell you something heartwarming...so heartwarming that you commence seeing stars?

Hoarse voices chaperoned several opinions to the back of my head, animated gestures of concern flashing before my fidgeting eyes as one of the options, but my lips only quivered in response with incoherent words falling off...perhaps, heart-wrenching for anyone who stared at me expectantly.

I was inexperienced with matters of the heart.

His smile fell. "Shouldn't you say something?"

I was startled by his words.

But my brain was crammed with stupidity as nothing lucid swung in my favor. "What should I say?"

Mr. Horton's solemn gaze searched my soul in those lengthening minutes of silence.

His brows contorted in what seemed like discontent with every fading second between us, as his daring eyes adverted to the mug between his hands.

Of cause, he wished to hate Elisabeth.

Who would blame him?

Mr. Horton was the picture of a ghost floating around with no place to go, seeking color in a life that was clouded by darkness while evading the claws of sad memories.

Although he was still confused as to who stood in front of him, the revenge-seeking Elisabeth or the happy-go-lucky Elisabeth, he always played the right cards...the cards that won the jackpot.

He was tortured by two different personas.

Who won't develop a migraine in trying to figure out what was going on?

My heart clenched bitterly to the sad redeem of my pulse.

Why?

Elisabeth made me promise nondisclosure of our identities, for it was her place, to tell the truth.

However, my heart weighed with urgency to scream the reality from every rooftop, but the fear of distrust and rejection in Dwain's handsome eyes which would be the aftermath of the truth sent a toxic shiver down my spine.

I didn't have what it takes to open up to him.

I couldn't build up the courage to end what we hadn't even begun.

My chance of being with Dwain danced on thin glass.

Jeez!

It just took a fraction of a minute to choose me over everyone else, to choose happiness over guilt, to become selfish and irrational towards the feelings of the one and only man I deeply loved...to choose him over everything in the world.

I fought against the blush of self-confidence and self-sufficiency which made its way from across my cheeks, masking their appearance with a bored facial expression.

Sooner or later, someone had to break the iceberg between both of us.

His calm demure was deafening, excessively depressing, and drowning.