Him and I (Our Abrupt Engagement)

Chapter 42

In my dreams, you're with me
We'll be everything I want us to be
And from there, who knows
Maybe this could be the night that we kiss........

Imagination - Shawn Mendes

"You can just go on the date with him. I don't see what's hard to decide here." Treyson said for the nth time making me groan in frustration. Regretting why I actually bothered to tell him about the conversation I had with Declan.

"Will you shut up, I have to think." I asked pulling my hair backwards into a ponytail.

It had been four days since the encounter I had with Declan.

"I am sorry." Declan had said breaking the silence that was lurking around the room.

"For?" I asked not knowing exactly what he was talking about.

"For six years ago." He quietly but clearly genuine. I was opening my mouth to say something but he cut me off. "I know you said you forgave me but you leaving made me guilty and I have been leaving with that guilt for  all these years."

This was not how I saw this conversation going but this wasn't bad and neither was it good. Had he lived blaming himself because I had left? I had written that it wasn't his fault and I sure knew he had gotten the letter I left. "I forgave you and it was not necessary to feel guilty over that. I was the Coward, you know?" I said trying to reassure him.

He looked at me for some time, taking in my appearance. "You met Alec and he thought you had a kid." He changed the subject suddenly.

"Wait! I haven't met him at all." I said in total confusion because I didn't remember meeting him. I would have recognized the handsome boy I had met years ago in a store. The boy who opened up to me even when I was a stranger.

Declan chuckled, "The man with long hair who carried Tula at the supermarket." He said in confirmation.

My eyes widened in realisation. So he was Alec. Now that I thought about it, something about him that day felt farmiliar.

"He told me you had a family." He said getting back his serious look. "You don't know how it felt to know that you had moved on from me so fast." His eyes said alot. So much for me to grasp a thing.

"So you didn't move on?" I asked him quietly.

He stood and walked around the table and  stood next to me. His cologne filling my nostrils. "I did but a part of me always waited for you." He said looking me in the eye. In all honesty.

I gulped not knowing what to say, had I moved on? Yes. Had I moved on completely? Yes. Had I waited for him? I wasn't sure but according to the life I was living, maybe I had waited for him too but I couldn't admit it to myself or even to him.

"Tiana...." His voice calling my name was like a song to my ears. "It's fine if you moved on from me. It's fine if you have a lover but can you do this one thing for me, please?" He asked.

I didn't know what he wanted to ask. I also wanted to tell him that I didn't have a boyfriend. That I hadn't let any other man touch me the way he had always done. That I hadn't thought about any other man the way I always thought about him. I also wanted to tell him how he had been in all my dreams every night but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I gulped and nodded my head for him to go on.

"Can you go on a date with me?" He asked still not breaking eye contact. I felt the old butterflies come back fluttering like never before. He was asking me out on a date and I was freaking out on the inside.