"Secrets don't die with the ones who keep them. They haunt the living until they're forced into the light..."
Aminah Clarke's life shattered the night her fiancée, Hailee, died in a tragic car crash. Now, a year later, she is left with a book bar, a...
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Alex POV
"Alex you can't ignore me forever. We have to talk about this babe." Her shrill voice piercing through the silence.
I cringe internally at her choice of words. Babe.
"I'm not ignoring you Lauren," I reply, forcing the words out.
"Well you're not talking to me, so what would you call it?" Her pale arms cross over her chest, rising and falling with each frustrated breath. A look of irritation etched across her freckled face.
"I just have a lot on my mind alright," My voice is exhausted, almost pleading, as I bring a hand to my forehead, closing my eyes with a sigh.
"And I don't? Alex we've been engaged for a year now and we still have yet to set a date. On top of that I feel like anytime I even bring up wedding plans or hell just the topic itself, every single time you shut down on me. I'm not going to be the only person standing at the alter—."
"I don't know what you want from me!" I finally let out. My irritation finally boiling over.
"You! That's what I want. I want you to look at me the same way you did when we first met. I want you to be here with me, to be present. I want you to be my fucking Fiancée!" She shouts, her arms flinging up in frustration.
"Yeah, well I'm not so sure that's what I want." I snap back, my words laced with venom.
Her expression softens and the air around us thickens. No one says a word. Our eyes meet for a second and I look away.
"Ah come on Lex, now you can't even look at me? So you want to throw away 5 years. That's not fair at all and you know it. Five years babe, not days, not weeks, not months. Five fucking years." Her voice trembles in raw pain.
"Five years and what do we have to show for it Lauren. Time doesn't matter for us anymore— not when I know the truth."
"How many times do I have to tell you that I had no clue what our families were planning. Alex I love you and I don't know what else I can do to prove that to you." Tears pooled in her eyes and her bottom lip quivered.
Normally those tears would have worked. I would have taken everything back and gave her the fake reassurance that we would try to make this work. But I can't this time, not with her still fresh in my mind. The feeling of her soft lips melting onto mine, something that I'm not quite ready to let go of.
Truthfully, I know exactly where my anger should be directed— My father. He's the one who orchestrated all of this. Lauren was just another piece in his perfectly arranged puzzle. But there's something I can't shake, a nagging feeling that she knows more than she's letting on.
"Did you know who I was when we first met?" I ask directly, not bothering to sugarcoat my suspicions. No more games.
"What? Really Alex?" She stammers, caught off guard her words, skate out as if she's treading on thin ice.
