AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But still, I fight it tooth and nail. I push it to the back of my mind in a little corner specially designed to hold thoughts concerning one silver-blonde woman. But the more I ignore it, the harder the pain pushes back.
I tried to work my arse off, but her teary eyes disrupted it, and I’m now lost in a world without her beautiful eyes. I tried to run to clear my mind, but I only made it around the block because my energy was drained. It crushes, aches, and I seem to be unable to escape it.
It fucking hurts.
I was naïve when I thought we could leave each other unscathed. I thought I could just walk away, but I saw her leave, and it clawed at me to the point that I couldn’t breathe anymore. I didn’t know what to feel and what to focus on. At first, I tried to ignore it. Ignore that anything had really happened, but that only worked for about an hour before it dawned on me what had actually transpired.
Since then, there’s a void so large, not even development contracts can take my mind off it. It’s everywhere I go, and I’m lost, so damn lost. I knew time was running out, but it got cut even shorter, and now I realise that no time could save me from this excruciating pain. This emptiness. Only two more weeks and I’ll lose her entirely.
There are so many things I regret: not predicting what would happen afterwards, the amount of pain there would be left to endure, the fact our lives would turn to ash.
Most of all, I regret how it ended.
In the blink of an eye, Evangeline had left my room, and I just sat there with my mind full of questions and unspoken words. It ended prematurely, but maybe it’s for the best. Maybe it saved us from even more heartbreak.
But I can’t imagine going through more pain. It haunts me that that one night was the last time I’d see her. It haunts me that there won’t be more memories for us to share. I try to visualise a world without Evangeline, but it claws at my heart. It screams at me to bring her back and to never let go.
Fuck, I miss her.
In the corner of my eye, I see a man sitting down on the other side of the booth. He is quiet when he turns around to watch the dance floor. He leans down to put his elbows on his knees. A loud sigh is captured by my ears, but I have no energy to greet him. I just want to drink.
“Drinking won’t help,” Sebastian says before sipping from his own glass of whiskey. I’m still testing it out, and if it could keep my mind off Evangeline for just a few hours, then I’ll file it as a success. I’m enjoying the warmth it gives me because my body is so fucking cold.
A comfortable silence falls over us, but even then, it’s heavy with emotion. A loud sigh comes from my friend again before he speaks a truth he never shared with anyone.
“The moment I realised Moreen would never love me was when she gave birth to Livia. She was so happy, Ches. I’ve never seen herthathappy because the periods before were dark, really dark. Livy was the light in her life that she desperately needed. Moreen held her daughter in her hands and there was so much love in her eyes, but when she looked at me, her eyes were empty and hateful. I understood then that nothing could fix what had happened,” Sebastian says, but his voice doesn’t really match his painful confession. It happened a long time ago, and I think he somehow got used to his life.
“But I vowed not to add more pain to her eyes so that rumour about me having an affair with my neighbour is completely false, because Moreen is the only person on my mind. And like I said, there’s no love between us, Chester. Nothing, but I’d give anything to change it because we could be fucking beautiful,” Sebastian says with a sad smile, and for the first time in my life, I witness this cold man show pain and regret, and it makes me turn my head to look at him. He still has his eyes on the dance floor, but for once, I see the weight on his shoulders. I see the strain and the hardship. I see eyes that long for something in their marriage other than hate.
“You love Evangeline, don’t you?” he whispers.
“Yeah,” I say, feeling something sharp puncturing my heart, and the only thing I see now are the tears rolling down her cheeks and her eyes losing hope. I swallow through the spikes of pain, and I shake my head, trying to get rid of the visual before it robs me of all oxygen.
“She loves you?”
“I think so.” She does, or rather she did. Evangeline wants to get married for love instead out of duty to her family. She mentioned that she didn’t want to let go, and I don’t want that either, but marriage… I just can’t. At the same time, though, I’m struggling to imagine a life without her bright, playful eyes and that sassy mouth.
It sucks, and with the hours ticking away, I realise I’m on a long recovery road, one I have no desire to take.
“Then what the fuck happened?”
“Who told you?”
“My wife, who seems to be besties with the woman with a broken heart.” I nod, but the mention of Evangeline makes my heart ache, and I wince because it almost physically hurts to think about her.
“Evangeline asked me to marry her.” Why did it need to become such a trigger? Why couldn’t I just have said yes? I fucking love her, but still, I can’t take a step forward when that word is uttered. It ruined everything, and because I couldn’t step up, Evangeline will now have to endure a loveless marriage. I’ll have to watch her marry Thomas Meyer, and I’ll be the villain who dared to let that bastard ruin her life when I could have stopped it.
I can stop it, but instead, I pulled myself out of the equation because the result is marriage. I don’t care about the money. I have plenty, and if it could help someone out, I’d gladly offer it. It’s Evangeline after all, but this deal has a component I’ll never like.
Fucking marriage.
“I think you need a good old-fashioned punch against the jaw, and hopefully, it’ll smack some sense into you,” Sebastian says, turning my way. He’s getting riled up. “Do you know how many people are searching for love, but can’t have it due to any number of reasons? A lot of people, Chester. Some would give anything to be in your position, but you’re holding on to bad examples of relationships, and forgetting to see that yours is different or at least it could be different.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re fucking joking, right?” he snarls my way, and his eyebrows lower. “I’m one of your bad examples. I live one of those lives, you fuck. I witness my wife regretting the day she saidIdo. I swallow her anger, her misery, and I’m drowning in guilt. I want love. I want Moreen to fall in love, but we’ll never have it. But you do. You fucking have it.”
Sebastian’s words are jabs against my heart. He’s angry, and I’m ashamed of having such a roadblock in my life that I can’t move past it. I wish I could. I want to, but I physically can’t utter the words. It’s stupid because I think my heart is breaking into pieces, but still, I don’t move forward.
