Page 8 of Mariposa
I reach over to Adam with a warm smile and brace myself to meet his farewell lips. I won’t be able to kiss him again for about a year. With my eyes closed and lips puckered, I stand on tiptoe…but he doesn’t follow through after the longest of seconds.
My lashes flutter. My brows knit together as I fall onto my heels, disappointed. Adam’s brown eyes are everywhere but on mine.
“What’s wrong?” I take a step back even more as I readjust my backpack on my shoulder. There’s a cloud hovering between the two of us, making me question everything.
“Look at me.”
He doesn’t. He starts to rock on his feet like he’s nervous.
I grind my teeth together as a dull sensation runs through my chest. I know that expression all too well now.
“Not you, too.” I bite my lip, hoping he’ll tell me my assumptions are wrong and I’m just reading too much into his body language. Instead, his brown eyes finally meet mine, but he can’t hold my gaze. He shakes his head vehemently, like he’d rather bolt from this conversation.
“Talk to me, please.”
“I’m sorry,” he admits softly, staring at his feet.
“You’re sorry?” I raise a brow.
“I don’t want to be waiting around for you, Violet. I wanted us to finish college together.”
“Adam…please don’t do this.Not now. You choose the moment right before I board my plane?”
“I’m sorry.”
“There are those two words again. You know, I’m really tired of hearing people say they’re sorry when they are, in fact,not sorry.”
He shrugs like he doesn’t care. My hand tucks a piece of loose hair behind my ear as heat trickles into my veins in the way I loathe. Flashes of our tangled limbs from this morning boil me over.
“So what was last night? And this morning?”
God, why do I feel taken advantage of?
His eyes finally pin on me.
“I was going to propose!” He reaches into his back pocket and takes out a ring. It glimmers from the sun outside the security check windows. Holographic sparkles reflect all over his face as he twirls it. My heart sinks as the thought of marriage hits me like an unexpected train.
“Was?” My voice lowers into a whisper.
“Was.”
“That’s why you’ve been distant these past few days?” I choke up. I tear my eyes away from him as my vision blurs. I look left and right, blinking the blindsided agony away.
Don’t fall apart.
Just take it.
Take the abandonment and betrayal like you always do, and don’t react.
“I don’t want a fiancée who’ll spend all her time with other men. I watched my mother go through this with my father gone all the time. I barely know the man. I refuse to let history repeat itself. You know how I feel about my dad, and now?” He waves a hand before me. “You’re going to be gone all the time,too?”
“I believed that our relationship was stronger than the distance.” I choke up.
Adam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, so did my mother.”
“We’re not your parents!”
My trust in our relationship is obliterated beyond repair.
