Moving On

Chapter 3

A new chapter for you guys, i hope it's OK!

One of my favourite writers Explode well known for Twisting You, Unbreakable Love and Unforgivable lies is not in a good place right now. So i ask you guys just to support her and say a prayer for her or just keep her in your thoughts, hopefully she gets better soon. So this chapter is dedicated to her!

Enjoy!

Walking up to Darren’s door I could already hear the laughing and shouting from his family, I clasped Darren’s hand and waited for an answer to come. The door was wrenched open and I was engulfed in Lynne’s embrace, it was amazing that such a small lady could give such great hugs.

“We missed you Carmen!”

“I missed you too Lynne.” I disentangled myself from her grasp and gave Kevin- her husband- a quick hug. I didn’t hesitate giving my mum a hug, it had been too long since I’d felt the comfort of her arms,

“I missed you chica.” My mum whispered emotionally into my ear, she sounded close to tears,

“I missed you to mamma.” I pulled back and was surprised to see Gloria standing bored next to the drinks table,

“What’s Gloria doing here?” my mum looked over here and then frowned,

“Alex and Mike didn’t think I was able enough to get here on my own.” I stifled a laugh, my mum was the most direction-senseless person ever. After everyone had exchanged hello’s Darren introduced me to some of his family members, some nicer than others,

“I want you to meet my cousin Anna, you’ll like her.” Darren murmured in my ear, sending tingles running down my back. I moved my head and gave him a small kiss, pulling back we shared a small smile,

“Hey Anna.” Darren gave the petite girl with green eyes and brown hair a hug,

“Hey Darren, who’s this?” she smiled at me

“This is my girlfriend Carmen.”

“Hey, I’m Anna!” she surprised me by gripping me in a hug enthusiastically,

“I’ll talk to you later, have fun.” He mouthed at me before slinking away to some ofhis cousins that I’d met earlier,

“So, has Darren been treating you right?” she smiled playfully,

“Hey, Darren.” Anna and I had finished talking, so we’d decided to go back to Darren, as soon as I got to our side he clasped my hand in his,

“So how’s your boyfriend Anna?” Darren asked his cousin with a mischievous smile, when we talked Anna had gushed endlessly about her boyfriend that was coming later on,

“Oh my gosh! He’s fine, he’s the most handsome boy ever! And he’s moving in with me, he’s just so sweet, kind and sexy!” I laughed with her at the end of her sentence, whilst Darren and his other cousins just grimaced,

“Here he is now!” with a squeal Anna disappeared into the kitchen where her supposed boyfriend was,

“Did she talk your ear off?”

“Yeah, she kept going on about how sexy her boyfriend is.”  I rolled my eyes at the end of the sentence,

“I am sexy!” I froze, I literally froze. The air was knocked out of me and all the bad memories came rushing back to me, what was he doing here? I thought I had left all those bad memories in New York,

“What’s wrong Carmen?” I was vaguely aware of Darren trying to get my attention but I couldn’t snap out of it,

“Hello Carmen, it’s been a long time since we talked.” He said this all with a cocky grin on his face, acting like nothing had happened before this; my anger got the best of me because I stepped forward and slapped him. His head jerked back and Anna shrieked, my eyes widened and I brought a shaky hand to my mouth before bolting out of the room and into the garden,  Darren had followed me and had held me for a few minutes comforting me,

“It’s him Darren, he’s come back!” I couldn’t believe it, I’d thought I’d have a brand new start here with Darren but he had come back,

“Who is he, Carmen?”

“It’s Jay, my mate.” I whispered and hid my face, I didn’t want to see his reaction. But instead he wrapped his arm around me securely,

“This changes nothing.” I could tell he was distraught, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Jay had messed my life up already way too much and now that I had a new life there was no way I was going to let him ruin this one. With my new found confidence I stood up and wiped any stray tears and composed myself.

“What are you doing?” I could see in his eyes that he thought that this would break us but I was going to make sure that wasn’t going to happen,

“I’m not going to let him break us, Darren. We’ll get through this together and we are going to get married no matter what.” The only problem was that Jay was with Anna now and I was damn sure he was playing her,

“I love you.”  Darren kissed me softly and hugged me,

“I love you too.” I said returning the hug.

 As Darren and I walked back into the house dozens of eyes looked us with a mix of uncertainty, confusion and disappointment, I sighed internally; they probably thought I was mentally unstable. Without word of warning Anna came shrieking up to me with a face of pure anger,

“How dare you! You slapped my boyfriend without any reason!” she brought her hand down and slapped me leaving a stinging sensation afterwards, Darren stepped forward and growled menacingly at her,

“Back off Anna, you don’t know shit!” my eyes connected with my mum’s she gave me a sympathetic look before focusing on the argument,

“She slapped my boyfriend, Darren. She’s a bitch!” I couldn’t stand it anymore, I intervened,

“I’m not a bitch, I slapped your ‘boyfriend’ because he was my mate and he rejected me and now he’s come back and I hope you know he’s playing you." I sighed as I took in everyone’s expressions, to say they were shocked was an understatement; only Lynne and Kevin knew about Jay and I’s history. I softened my tone and began speaking again,

“The last thing I wanted to do was split your family apart, believe me when I say this.” I looked at her with uncertainty, wondering if she’d believe me,

"Liar! This is exactly what you’re trying to do, you’re just jealous that Jay’s moved on with me.” I nearly growled in frustration, why couldn’t she see what I was saying was true. I’d hit off with Anna and now the friendship I thought we shared was slowly disappearing, thank God Lynne stepped in.

“We’ll talk about this later in private, why we don’t go back to enjoying ourselves?” and just like that everyone went back to their conversations like nothing had happened.