Sun-kissed

Chapter 22

Amina worked her mouth, the denial on the tip of her tongue.  She didn't know how he found out, but it didn't matter now. She needed to explain.  Amina shook her head, "It's not what you think."

"Mwuh?" He raised an eyebrow at her and arrogantly asked, "So you don't have a fiancé?"

She heard the pain in his voice and closed her eyes.  "I do, but..."

"But what? You just conveniently forgot to tell me?" He scoffed softly under his breath and sat up, scooting down towards the end of the bed.  He grabbed his boxers and put them back on.  He sat on the edge, his back turned away from her.

Amina looked desperately at his back, silently willing him to turn around.  She could feel him distancing himself from her, both physically and emotionally. Panicking, she found herself rambling. “I… I wanted to tell you, but,” she swallowed.  “But the opportunity never came up.” She cringed at how awful her excuse sounded.

He looked over his shoulder at her.  

Amina sat up slowly, tucking the edge of the bed sheet over her breasts.  “I planned on telling you… I-I just didn’t know that you and I would be moving so fast.”

“You didn’t know?” Youngbae hung his head for a moment.  He turned around and faced her. “Or you didn’t care?”

Amina didn’t know what to say.  What could she say?  She should have told him in the beginning, well before things got heated between them.  But how was she to know that things would have progressed the way it did?  She shook her head slightly.  “Of course I care…  I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you from the beginning.  I should have told you.” She grappled for something to say; something that would make things right between them. But nothing came to her.  She chose the truth instead.  “I was… afraid.”

“Afraid?” He looked at her in disbelief.  “Afraid of what? That I would find out your secret? That you’ve been playing me for a fool this whole time?”

“Ani!” Amina shook her head vehemently, denying his words.  Her eyes pleaded for him to understand.  “I was afraid of my feelings for you.  Because I thought that it was something that I could control… but I can’t,” she whispered.

If her words were meant to soothe his ego, it didn’t.  He scoffed at her admission, unwilling to believe for a second that she didn’t have other intentions.  “And your fiancé? Do you plan on telling him about us?”

“Ani…” Amina quietly replied. 

“Ani?” Youngbae repeated incredulously.

Amina remembered the words that David spoke to her a few days ago. When he said them to her at the time, she couldn’t comprehend how he could be so forgiving, but Amina knew now.  It was something she wished for Youngbae to understand as well.  “Whatever I choose to do before getting married is my own life.”  She shrugged her shoulder delicately.  “When I get married, my life starts over with him. Everything else won’t matter.”

“Including me?” he asked pointedly.

“Bae…” Amina begged.  “I didn’t mean it like that…” She wanted to start over.  She wasn't explaining it right.

Youngbae smiled humorlessly.  He didn’t know what kind of messed up relationship she had with her fiancé, but apparently swinging and dating others before marriage was okay between them.  “If a physical relationship was all that you wanted, you could have told me in the beginning." He looked up and saw her flinch slightly at his words.  "Then we wouldn't have to mess with all this confession stuff."

Amina painfully whispered, "That was never my intention."

"Wasn't it?" He sneered.  "What else could it be?  You expect me to believe that you have genuine feelings for me when you're promised to someone else? That's a bit much, isn't it?" He raised an eyebrow at her, challenging her.