Izan and Mist

Chapter 7 (Mist): I Made Everything Right

"Mist, no. You can't be serious. We're not ending things, especially not over Yvette."

I hated this. I'd had more confrontation in the last week than I'd had in my entire life and it was draining my energy and my spirit.

"Izan, you just told me Yvette was always going to be around because she's an old family friend. She's really good friends with your sisters, too -- your sisters who also weren't talking nicely about me. So you want me to just put up with their attitudes? Just deal with her trying to cut me out of your life? Being horrible to me?"

"No! I'm saying I'll protect you from all that, and I'll talk to everyone. Set them straight. You won't have to face anything when you're with my family because we'll leave if anyone starts anything, but they won't dare."

"And what's to stop them -- oh, you know what? Never mind. It's only going to be a temporary fix before it all goes back to the way it was. Keeping family in line isn't sustainable."

"I can't believe you're giving up. Why am I the only one fighting for us, Mist? Answer me this: do you love me?"

"Of course I do! That's not the problem. It's never been the problem. Yvette's the biggest problem, closely followed by your sisters and your other friends who feel it's OK to trash talk your girlfriend. And by the way, the only one fighting for us up until I told you I was done has been me!"

"I'm sorry, Misty. I'm going to change all that. I know we have some problems to face, but I love you and you love me, and I'm going to marry you. Our love is all that really matters. Everything else we can work out and deal with together. I won't leave you alone for a minute when we're around my family."

"Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? That's not a long-term solution."

"Mist, I'll do better, I swear it. I'll protect you."

"Why do you even have people in your life I have to be protected from? I didn't grow up with hateful people who made fun of other people because of the way they look or dress or grew up. I was raised in a loving, supportive community, and I don't want to have a lifetime of being around nastiness, of having to stand next to you out of fear people are going to start being mean to me if I wander off on my own."

I walked up to him, putting my hands on his chest, hoping he could understand. "Izan, I wouldn't want my children around that either, always having to worry that someone's going to say something to hurt their feelings or say something awful about their mother in front of them."

He picked up my hands and pressed a kiss to each palm. "Mist. I get it. Just...don't give up on me, OK? Just give me one last chance to fix everything, and I'll make everything right."

After that impossible promise, he kissed me hard on the lips and left.

I woke up after just a few hours of sleep after Izan left. Feeling the need for some serious time in the country, I did it again. I went home to reboot and refresh myself, but this time, I was planning on staying longer. My work was portable, so I could work from anywhere, and being surrounded by the land would refresh me, help me think, heal. I texted my neighbor to water my plants once a week and she texted me back Be happy to! 

I drove home on autopilot, thinking about Izan accusing me of giving up, of him being the only one willing to fight for us. After thinking about it, I decided that wasn't accurate. I'd been fighting against Yvette for a while, putting up with her rudeness, with her subtle and not-so-subtle power plays showing how in she was with Izan's family, with Izan himself.

More in than I'd realized with the family vacations to Sevilla both his family and her family took together. Did I trust that there wasn't more between them that he was admitting to? If I was asking myself that, wasn't that an automatic no? Did years of familiarity alone make a girl so possessive and nasty to another girl? Or was there more to it? I hated this, hated the way I wasn't trusting Izan in so many ways now. I'd never been the suspicious, questioning type...until I'd met Yvette and had been hit with her smugness, her over-familiar ways with my boyfriend, her dismissal of me.