The Path of Roses 🥀

PART 2: CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Word Count: 2,000

Still Saturday, September 4th, 2004 (1 month, 5 days after Jordan's Diagnosis)

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"Are you serious?" David asked in disbelief.

"Yes I am." I answered coolly.

For years, I've only known David Lardon to be funny, attractive, serious, and rebellious. He was everything I thought a perfect guy should be. But being friends with a guy is completely different from dating them. You only get to witness a certain side of them. 

Now, I knew for sure that he wasn't the one anymore. In the course of three months of dating him, I witnessed the severity of his trust issues. How long would it be before he started throwing punches at me?" 

"You're acting like a control freak and I'm getting sick and tired of it!" I continued.

"Victoria, you're being dramatic."

"David," I scoffed. "I haven't even started yet."

David rolled his eyes. "You're acting like smartass Tess Morgan."

My mouth opened wide, offended by David's words. I could not believe David would stoop that low to compare me to a disgusting feminine creature to mankind.

"Damn David." Mal stated, feeling shocked as well. "Are you trying to get your ass kicked?"

"Who the hell is Tess Morgan?" Sebastian asked, butting his head into the conversation. "She sounds hot."

"Of course you would think that, you pervert," I answered hastily, rolling my eyes.

Sebastian quietly moved back to the guys, mumbling about my feisty attitude. I ignored his comments and looked at David.

"How come the more I'm getting out of my shell and making new friends, you become so distrustful of me?" I asked. 

"Can we talk about this somewhere else?" David mumbled, giving me that You're-Embarrassing-Me Look.

"No David. We gotta talk about this." I stated. "Look, we live almost 400 miles from each other. I don't know about you, but this long distance relationship we have, isn't working as great as we thought it would."

"I know, but I'm trying, you know," David said, grabbing my hand. "It's just that I love you so much Victoria. I don't want to lose you."

Something about David's words, or maybe it was how he looked at me with so much affection made me want to instantly forgive him and try to perfect french kissing with him and forget this argument we're having. 

But then I remembered what I said to Jordan on that day when we talked about love. "Saying that you love someone is meaningless if you can't prove it. It's like they expect those three little words to convince you to suddenly fall in love with them. And then when you fall in love, everything will magically work out and you'll have a fairy tale like happily ever after ending. It's bullshit."

"It's bullshit." I thought. The words "I love you" doesn't automatically fix everything. It reveals things and in some cases, it demands an answer. And I knew that I could never truly say "I love you" back to David anymore. The words were stuck on my throat.

"I know in your own way you care about me, " I said, slightly touching his hands. "And I do love you, but just not in that way." I removed my hands from his. 

I was expecting that David would start begging or get really upset that I didn't love him romantically anymore. But I was never more surprised and relieved when he simply nodded.