#Chapter 114 – Alone on our own

I few days later, I sit in my closet, my fingers buried in my hair as I stare at the rotary phone on the floor.

It’s been an incredibly busy couple of days, the first of the new year. The boys have started with their new tutor, I’ve been reconnecting with clients after the holidays, and, generally, just trying to get life to normal after the complete blow out of the last two weeks.

But behind it all, creeping up on me, staring over my shoulder, is the knowledge that for the first since we’ve met…Victor and I are both single.

We haven’t even really had a moment to sit alone with each other in the past few days – Victor, likewise, is caught up with his Beta project, as well as developing the school, but in the times when we’ve met together to talk about what’s best for the boys…

I feel…

Just, a tension between us. This unspoken knowledge that, now, there’s nothing holding us back. But perhaps…perhaps I wanted something to hold me back? I don’t know.

And then, there’s Edgar. As I stare at the wall in my closet, I allow myself, finally, to consider my feelings about my breakup.

In the past few days I’ve done precisely what I advise my clients not to do: I’ve avoided the issue. I’ve ignored my thoughts of him, pressed down my feelings, stayed busy, made sure I was so exhausted at night that I didn’t have time to let my thoughts drift in Edgar’s direction before I fell asleep.

But here, now? All I have is time as I wait for the phone to ring.

Edgar. I frown, thinking of him, of his handsome face, his soft black curls. He was, in so many ways, the perfect man for me – precisely what I had been looking for. Strong, steady. Good in bed. I blush a little, thinking of it.

But, inexorably, unfairly, my thoughts turn to Victor – as they always do. It was always doomed with Edgar, I think, with Victor living next door. And in my heart, I know it’s true – hell, even Edgar knew it was true.

But in another time, another place. Would it have worked?

I wonder, then, what would have happened if instead of breaking up with me, Edgar had burst into the house and swept me away with him. Told me to pack my bags, pack my kids, that we were disappearing, that we were going to build a new life away from all of this.

Away from pack politics, away from all this Alpha bullshit. I could have given my boys the life I dreamed for them – the one where they got to choose their futures. Maybe Edgar would have taken us deep into the mountains, to live in a cabin. Or the desert, where we could live in a yurt under the desert sky.

But then, I realize, with rather a sudden shock, that of course Edgar didn’t do that.

He didn’t fight for me. He didn’t come in, teeth bared, ready to fight Victor for me, ready to take me away, desperate to lose me. Instead, he came to my house and bowed out, leaving nothing behind but that cryptic note.

very suddenly, very awful.

be with me? Victor chose Amelia, he was going to marry her if she hadn’t locked

didn’t choose me either.

would anyone

like a brick, then. The strong possibility that

of my reverie, as the phone begins ringing.

façade is no longer at stake. When the original threat

I sitting here, why haven’t I cancelled the sessions through

phone continues to

damnit, I’m

the receiver and bring it up to

mechanized voice, a robot, but I could tell, now – after all these months – it was him, just by the cadence behind it. “Are you busy? It took you awhile to come to the

say, leaning back against my closet wall. “Just a momentary distraction. I hope you’ll

“Quite all right.”

a little awkward.

been okay,” he says, thoughtful. I wonder where he’s sitting now – where it is that he takes these calls. Probably at his desk, of course, but I can’t help but imagine him laying in his bed. His warm tanned skin against the cool white cotton

I say, “we discussed your family’s attempt to take over power from you. How is

hear that his answer is fairly light. “I’m actually feeling much better about that,” he

progressed to make that

could he have been talking about? Did Annabeth make some

me any more?” I ask, deeply

of my children,” he says, and I feel so surprised that shock tingles in my

forward,” he continues, “really came to

be discussing myself. I’ve got to get us off this topic. “Tell me more about your future

actually

grit my teeth, frustrated at my inability to steer him otherwise. “Of course,”

some advice on my next steps,” he says. “My last relationship only ended about a week ago, which

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