Love In the time of covid

Chapter 45

Giselle was the first to wake up on Sunday morning. She had a hard time sleeping at all, tossing and turning. As hard as she tried, she was never able to get comfortable, especially when she realized at 2:30 am that the reason was because Chris wasn't beside her. No matter how she folded her pillow to lay under her head all she could do was think of him.

Finally, at 4 am, Giselle's body gave way to the exhaustion, and she slept hard but no more than 3 hours. she couldn't stay in the bed any longer, so she got dressed, put on her shoes by the door, grabbed her purse and walked a few streets over to Café Du Monde.

As Giselle made her way to the pastry shop, she pulled out her phone and brought up Chris' texts. There were so many from the past couple of days that she scrolled for at least 30 seconds before reaching the bottom.

All of them were varying degrees of remorseful apologies and begging her to call him so they could talk.

Giselle hit the picture she saved as his contact photo and hit the phone icon to dial his number. It rang 4 times before she almost gave up and disconnected.

"Giselle?" Chris asked, sounding out of breath and also surprised it was her.

Giselle stopped walking as squeezed her eyes shut and felt a ball of emotion lodge itself in her throat. "Yes, it's me."

"Baby. I'm so sorry. Please come home. I miss you so much. I don't know what to do without you." Chris immediately jumped in, not wasting any time to plead for her to come back to him.

"I miss you too. I just needed some time away to clear my head. I'm sorry I left you in that hotel room." Giselle's voice cracked as she apologized for her part in the rift between them.

"You promised you wouldn't walk away from me anymore. I know what I did was wrong...God I know that now but you broke your promise to me."

"I know and I'm sorry."

"Will you come home now? So, we can talk about it face to face?"

"It's not that simple." Giselle began to explain before she paused to take a breath.

"Wh...what do you mean?" Chris asked with concern in his voice, he understood he lied but what else could he have done?

"If the pandemic had never happened, would you have still chosen me?" Giselle asked the question that had been swirling in her head for the past few days. She had gone back and forth on whether or not she was the person he would've ended up with if he had other choices.

"Wait what? Why are you asking me that?" Chris asked hurt that she would ever think that he had any other choice.

"If you had other options...." Giselle began, finding the strength to finish. "Would I be the one you want? Or was I was just convenient because there was no one else there?"

"Giselle. I don't even know how you can ask..."

"Some woman at the party told me about what you used to be like. That you had a reputation. That I would be shocked if I or the world knew the truth. What did she mean by that?" Giselle cut him off to further revealed where her thoughts were.

Chris felt like he had been punched in the gut and it was hard to take in air. He never pretended to be a saint, but he thought he had left his sins in the past but here they were in his face and threatening him with the one person he loved the most in the world. "Elle. I don't understand why you're believing some woman at a party over what you know I feel for you. Do you think I was just pretending this whole time?"