𝐎 𝐁 𝐉 𝐄 𝐂 𝐓 𝐈 𝐎 𝐍 (18+)

19

   Eye Of The Storm..

♡♡♡♡

The last thing I wanted to be doing was sitting across the table from a woman who spun a ring around her finger anxiously, a ring she refused to give back to me. I'd only asked twice and each time she swore to me if she took it off that would be it.

We would be over.

She was threatening me with a good time and that must've been why she kept it on. She had no leverage against me, I honestly didn't care if she came or went. If it weren't for the prospect of her carrying my child I wouldn't have even agreed to meet with her in the first place.

"I think we should ride together to the party tomorrow instead of taking separate cars like we've been doing. We don't want to give anyone any reason to—"

"Why are we doing this?" She looked shocked by my interruption but I couldn't stand to hear another word. The distant hum of conversations and servers walking around the crowded restaurant only emphasized the deafening silence between us.

She was talking, I could hear her well but she wasn't saying anything. We were void of any emotions with each other. They were just words.

"Doing what?"

"Pretending. Let me ask you a question Charlotte do you love me? Did you ever even love me?" I hoped she answered honestly because I wasn't asking as her scorned ex-fiancé. I was asking as a friend, as someone who knew exactly what it was like to live her life and I wanted more for her.

I wanted more for us.

"Issac of course I love you why do you think I ended things with him? I want to make this work, why would you even ask a question like that?"

"Really? I think having a two-year affair is reason enough to ask a question like that."

She ran a hand through her hair and sniffed. It wasn't freshly blown out like usual, she hardly looked like she ran a brush through it. Her under eyes were dark red and her eyes were near bloodshot. She'd been crying, this lunch might've been the only time she stopped.

"It was a mistake, one I won't make again if you just let—"

"Was it really a mistake Charlotte? Did you love him? I'm asking you to answer that honestly."

I could see her playing with the question in her head, weighing her answers. The fact that she didn't have one right away meant she had to form one. To carefully craft a lie that sounded as pretty as she was. My theory was confirmed once I saw her open her mouth to say the word no so I helped her out.

"I don't love you Charlotte, not anymore. I don't think I have been in love with you for a long time now. I was though, I loved you so much it hurt and when I asked you to marry me I fully believed you were the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with."

"Issac," she warned tears filling her eyes. She tried to avoid making eye contact with me but when she did I could see the last three years in her eyes. The time we wasted pretending with one another.

"And I'm sorry Charlotte that you felt like—that I made you feel like I'd never love you as much as I love her and maybe that's true. I'm sorry that it took this happening to show me that but think about what it did for you. I know you Charlotte, you know me. I know what it's like to have a life you aren't free to live. No matter how nice you thought I was, no matter how well I treated you, no matter how hopeful you were for our future you still didn't choose me."

"Don't." She protested. The tears were falling now, spilling onto the wooden table. It was a miracle someone wasn't recording us but if they had been I wouldn't have cared. If there was any moment I wanted people to see it would be this one. The one where I finally take my life back.