She isn't married to me

Chapter 12: take him or leave him

ADRIA

It's Saturday morning and I'm seated in front of my computer trying to continue writing my new book.

Jackie took Sophie and her daughter to this huge playground two hours from our town. Fred as always is gone during the weekend, he still believes I'm clueless about his affairs, at least he senses I'm not in love with him anymore.

On the other hand, Jackie knows there's something wrong with me, she has tried to make me talk about it but I don't want to, I've never been good talking, that's why I write or sing. Expressing myself through my books has been a blessing, I guess that's why she took Sophie with her, so I can write, but how can I write when he is on my mind all the time. I haven't been able to write anything this week neither eaten at Paco's.

I don't want to see the person who is making me feel like this. I ate in some other restaurants, but the food was bad. Paco's definitely has the best chef in town, and the best waitresses, too.

I must admit I miss him, I miss his funny faces, his flirtatious smiles, I miss to see him staring at me, and how he remembers everything I like from the menu.

I can't help but remember Fred five years ago when I met him. I found in him something I didn't have as a kid, and that was a good father. Fred is eight years older than me and when I met him, I was twenty-one. We only dated for one year before I got pregnant of Sophie. He promised me all the good things a woman could want and need in her life. He was loyal back then and so kind that I really thought I found the man of my dreams.

I got married at twenty-two and soon after Sophie was born, he started to change, 180 degrees change.

How can I forget when the writing bug stung on me. I was only eighteen and I never had the courage to publish my work or to talk somebody about it. It was Fred who encouraged me to do it. By the time I was pregnant it was when I published my first book, it was an immediately success. Fred worked in a bank back then, but he knew that being my publicist could be a better idea. Soon after we started to have awful arguments about my career and his role in it, one day I couldn't handle it anymore and I asked him to do something else with his life.

With my first book I had enough money to live in a better place and to make Fred's dream come true, too. That was having his mechanic shop. Yeah, the one he doesn't care anymore.

I don't know how long I was in my thoughts when I hear the door. Somebody is at the door, it may be the handyman, I asked him to come and fix the faucet in my kitchen.

I walk to the entrance, open the door, and surprise, it's not him.

"Andrew? what are you doing here? You should be at the restaurant now." My face must be white right now, I wasn't expecting him on my door.

"Hi Adria, I'm sorry I'm coming so unexpectedly, somebody told me Fred is not around, and I don't have to work today, so I only came to give you this box. I promise you won't find anything inside that can piss Fred off."

A box? He is giving me a box? "Oh, ok, I don't know what to say but thank you, although this is unexpected, I.. I..."

"It's ok, you don't have to thank me, I understood your message, and I don't want to be a burden for you, but I have missed you this week, and suddenly I received that wake-up call, so everything indicated that I should be here today giving you this."

"Andrew, before I open it, is it something good or bad?." I'm shaking, I want to smile, I want...

"It's not bad, I would never give you something bad, but I don't want to give you what a woman like you deserves because you made it clear in the message that you and I could never be together, and by the way, I mean roses, you deserve all the roses in the world."