Page 93 of Misguided Vows

“Come on, love, just stop and let me drive you, home.” He sounds desperate.

“Just leave me alone, Will! I can’t keep doing this dumb shit. We’re not teenagers. There is no us! You can’t leave the past and I won’t make you!” I snap. People walk around us, curious about the spectacle.

“I’m trying, but it’s not easy for me. But you didn’t tell me about the future we could have. You kept that from me,” he scolds. I wince at the lethal edge in his tone. The vulnerability and hurt. He knows about the pregnancy. He has to.

I grind my molars. And like a coward, I flip him off and keep walking. I can’t talk to him about this. It has nothing to do with him. It’s my decision whether I keep and raise the baby on my own. And the decision won’t be dependent on this man.

I shouldn’t have worn my heels today. That was a stupid mistake. One I’m now paying for.

I cross my arms over my chest and try to walk faster, but I can still sense that he’s following me, so I try my hardest to lose him in the crowd. I’m unsure why he’s here, and to be honest, it’s messing with my head. We aren’t teenagers, and I feel likewe laid everything out perfectly before I left New York, so seeing him again makes my heart beat faster and my hands sweatier, and I hate that he can get this reaction from me. No other man gives me heart palpitations like he does, even if he is hacking my emails.

Fucking asshole.

Before I can turn the corner, arms wrap around me from behind, and my legs are flipped out from beneath me as Will carries me bridal style, knocking the air out of my lungs. He turns me around and starts walking back the way we came.

“What are you doing? Put me down!” I demand as I thrash in his hold, equally embarrassed at the people watching us. I purposefully push at his face, which he spectacularly ignores.

“No, you’re cold and not thinking right. You’re angry and irrational. You can hit me when we’re in the car or you can wait until we get to your place. But we’re discussing this.”

This.

Us.

The enormity of what hasn’t yet been said out loud.

I kick back and forth, trying to escape his ironclad hold, furious that he knows. Wild that he can’t just let me go, to let me have enough breath from him to think straight. I keep hitting because I should hate this man. I do hate this man. But a tiny part of me clings to the fact that he followed me. A small part of me breaking, realizing that I can’t keep doing this.

“A little harder, love. I may like it.” I stop hitting him, and even when I try to wiggle free from his grasp, he doesn’t let me go. He just strides on, and the busy crowd parts for him like he’s some kind of God.

He finally stops and puts me down when I see an all-black car. He opens the door, but I refuse to get in.

“No, Will! Enough. I won’t be some consolation prize!” Now, I don’t even care who can hear me.

“You’re not!” he says desperately. “I’m losing my mind and I don’t know what to do. But, Alina, I know it all keeps coming back to you. Ineedyou.”

“I need someone who can love me unconditionally, Will. Someone who won’t have me comparing myself with their past. Someone who makes me feel secure!” I adamantly say.

“You want me to drop down to one knee? I will,” he replies breathlessly.

My mouth opens and then snaps shut. Tears water my eyes, and a hot rage fills me. “How fucking dare you! Do you think I’m going to be appeased because you want to shut me up with a ring?”

“No, but I’m willing to give you whatever you want. I will take vows to chain myself to you, Alina, if that’s the start to make you feel secure.”

I scoff. “Is that what I am to you, a ball and chain?”

“You’re so much more and you know that,” he insists. “It’s not just the fun we have, Alina. You are a piece of me I didn’t realize that’s missing. That I never thought I could have again.”

It’s a cruel, twisted joke as I try to laugh between sobs. “And what about Hayley?” The ghost in the room, my unsaid competition. And I hate that I even think of her that way because I’ve never felt this way about someone who is so attached to his ghosts.

“I’m learning to let go,” he says quietly, and tears begin to well in his eyes. “Please, Alina, I’m trying. I want a future with you. I want a future where we can grow and build a family.”

I scoff at that last part, but I can’t even see him through the tears that fill my eyes.

“You never told me you were pregnant,” he adds, and I can feel my heart breaking.

“You don’t get a say in this!”

“Of course I get a say in this!” he screams back. Right now, despite the public display, it only feels like us.

---