Contractually Yours

30• It's for the best

🔹️Adrien Russell🔹️

I got a deja vu while I was driving recklessly through the dark highway at midnight. The exact same feelings I had years ago were being blown at my face. It hurt to realise that I was wrong about thinking that maybe Crystal and I could work this marriage out and be the perfect husband and wife for each other.

That picture of Evan's lips on Crystal's pierced through my heart. As I recalled that, numerous emotions rushed into me, making me accelerate the car and tighten my fist on the steering wheel.

I wasn't mad at Crystal or Evan for liking each other.

I was disappointed that I allowed myself to fall for someone I shouldn't have once again. I should have known that when the woman who claimed to love me and promised to be by my side forever didn't think twice before ghosting on me, how would someone bound to me by a contract would stay.

But if Crystal had feelings for Evan, why did she hide it from me? Why did she make me feel like we could be something together and why did she let me kiss her?

Nothing made sense at that moment and honestly, I was mentally exhausted.

I stopped the car when I reached the hilltop, the place I had brought Crystal to after our date. Opening the glove compartment, I took my small bottle of whiskey and moved out of the car.

Minutes turned to hours and I sat there doing nothing with my phone buzzing in my pocket continuously. I ignored it for some time. It was Sophie who kept calling me. When declining the call several times didn't give her a hint, I turned my phone off.

The whiskey had finished and it had started to freeze but I didn't move. I don't know how long it was when I heard rustling beside me followed by Sophie's voice.

"I knew I'd find you here." She said and crouched down her knees as I sat on the ground. "When someone calls you, you need to answer them, that's what a phone is for."

"And when someone declines your call, it means they are either busy or they don't want to talk. I thought you were smart enough to know that." I commented grumpily.

She sighed deeply and said nothing, but that silence wasn't long.

"I told you, you'll end up getting hurt." I shut my eyes in annoyance. Don't get started, Sophie. "I knew she was just using you and trusting her would give you nothing. Look what she's done to you. Look at what you've done to yourself."

"Can we just not do this right now?" I was already very frustrated. I tried taking a sip of my whiskey but realised that it had finished so I threw it beside me in irritation.

"If you expect me to just sit and watch you be all depressed, you know that's not happening." She grabbed my face and turned it towards her. "It's still not late, Adrien. You can free yourself from her. Let her go and both of you can stay happy."

Her words hit my head hard. Maybe she was right. If I had been holding Crystal back from being with Evan, from being happy, I needed to let her go.

"The media is paying more attention to Alan Marshall's controversy and while they are at it, you both can separate your ways. It won't make a big impact."

While Evan and Crystal's kiss was imprinted in my mind, all of Crystal's moments with me flashed before my eyes. When we cared for each other, when we enjoyed being around each other, when we kissed each other. It hurt to realise that there was no 'we'. It was just me who had felt that.

Tired of all the thinking, I laid my head on Sophie's shoulder. The posh scent from her wasn't very comforting but I didn't move away. Instead I just reminded myself of Crystal's peachy smell and her embrace.