"We agreed. If I won, you'd marry me someday."
"Why'd you wanna marry me, anyhow?" I ask.
"So, I can do this for the rest of our lives," he stops walking with me in his arms, his radiant blue-green eyes flickering between my eyes and lips as the ons...
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Ecstatic.
Elated.
Excited.
Exultant.
Those are all the exact same emotion.
But it's that exact emotion I thought I'd feel once Alec handed over the signed divorce papers.
I thought I'd crack open a bottle of champagne and celebrate like the fourth of July. I thought I'd even continue to celebrate through the tragedy of someone drunkenly losing a finger carelessly with fireworks.
I thought I'd dance the night away like the people affected in the fifteenth century with the Dancing Plague.
I thought I would be jumping for fucking joy!
I thought I'd be screaming freedom like Mel Gibson's character, William Wallace, as he delivered his most iconic line. At least, it's the most iconic line for me.
But I thought wrong.
I feel nothing but something at the same time.
It's a dull ache pulsating somewhere in my body. I can't pinpoint it, but I know it's somewhere. It's an unfamiliar ache.
It's there but it's not. I might even believe I'm imagining it and it's all in my head. It might quite literally be in my head, but this thought doesn't sit right with me.
None of it does.
Why am I not over the moon with happiness?
Alec just handed me the manila envelope with the divorce papers.
Signed.
This is what I wanted.
This is why I came home.
I should be feeling some form of happiness, but I'm not.
So why aren't I?
"Telana, promise me," he says, his pleading green-blue eyes searching mine for something. But if he looks closely enough, he'll see the lights are on but the mall's empty.
My brain isn't commuting.
My emotions aren't reacting.
I feel frozen.
Like my skin will never feel the warmth of the sun again.
This is what I wanted yet something isn't sitting right with me. The hope in his eyes shines brighter than the sun. The determination burns hotter than the earth's core. The sweet smile curling his lips and reaching his eyes contradicts the smile of a man signing divorce papers.
Divorce papers he put up hell of a fight for and was determined not to sign.
Why now?
Nothing is adding up unless my math isn't mathing again.
