AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Ten
Carmen took anotherbite from her crepe, filling her mouth with warm cheese and pineapple. She hadn’t had a cheese and pineapple crepe for years.
‘Is everything okay between us? After yesterday, I mean?’ Rob glanced down at the floor before catching her eye.
Carmen shrugged. ‘Yes.’
‘You don’t sound so sure?’
Lowering her crepe, Carmen swallowed. It was now or never. If she ever wanted things to feel natural between them again, if she didn’t want to have to pretend to him, then she had to tell him how she really felt. She had to ask him the questions which had been whirring around in her mind since he’d told her about Ava. ‘I guess I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me. When you rang me to break things off, why weren’t you just honest? I could have helped you, given you support even if you didn’t feel you were in a position to stay in our relationship, I could have still been there for you. I would have understood.’
Rob swallowed his last mouthful of crepe and folded the empty cardboard sleeve in his hand. ‘I guess I panicked. I didn’t want you to think you had to stay with me. I didn’t want to push you away, but I felt as though it was the right thing to do. I had to completely change my life. I was suddenly a father, a full-time dad. I had to change jobs and move down here. I couldn’t have asked you to uproot your life for me.’
‘Right.’ Carmen took another bite of her crepe. He could have explained, though. He could have given her a choice. It had been her life, her decision whether to follow him or not. He could have opened up.
‘Do you understand?’
She swallowed. Did she? ‘Honestly? Not really. We’d been together a year, which might not have felt very long to you, but it had to me. I loved you. I would have moved to the ends of the earth for you.’
Rob paused and placed his hand on hers. ‘I guess that’s what I was worried about.’
‘You didn’t feel the same way.’ Of course he hadn’t. If he had, he would have spoken to her. Given her a choice. It may have been four years ago since it happened. Since he’d run off and left her, but those words still stung. She closed her eyes momentarily, feeling the sting of tears behind her eyelids.
‘No, I did. I loved you. I felt more for you than I had about anyone else in my life before. But I didn’t want to force you into a situation, to allow you to move away from your job, your home, your family, Adele, and you to end up resenting me.’
She shook her head. ‘But that’s just it, isn’t it? You wouldn’t have allowed me, it would have been my choice.’
‘Yes, sorry. I know.’
‘I spent so long thinking, assuming that I just hadn’t been good enough for you and all along...’
‘I’d loved you too much to force that decision onto you.’
‘You don’t get it, do you? You still don’t get it.’ Pulling her hand away, she turned and began walking away. It hadn’t been his decision to make. How many times did she have to tell him that? Or was it just a brush-off? Was he telling her that he had loved her and hadn’t wanted to have her resent him because it was easier than admitting that he hadn’t actually felt anything for her in the first place?
‘Carmen, hold on...’
She didn’t. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want him to realise how hurt she was by all of this. It had been four years ago! She should be over him by now, but the truth was she never had gotten over him. She never had pushed him to the back of her mind. Was it because she had given up on dating? Given up on ever finding her soulmate after he’d left? If she had dated again, would he have just been some distant memory? Someone she’d used to date, not someone she still had feelings for?
Quickening her pace, she rounded the corner of the school building. It was quieter. The playground and the summer fete were behind her, around the corner. Leaning against the wall, she took a deep breath and looked around. In front of her was a fenced-off area, long grasses skirted around a small woodland. A nature area maybe? She remembered her old primary school having a nature area. Somewhere they could go insect hunting whilst learning about mini-beasts, somewhere they could watch frogspawn magically morph into tadpoles before becoming fully grown frogs.
