Not a Reunion

Chapter 32

Thea

When I get off the plane, the tension in the air is very thick. I take notice of the silence, one that seemed to exist in only my bubble. The person who walks beside me to get our luggage out doesn't even look at me. I've never felt someone's ignoring feel as if they were glaring.

I watch as Mason smoothly gets my suitcase off the incliner and then sets it down in front of me, his eyes moving away toward his already. "Thanks," I whisper, and the only acknowledgement I get from the person beside me is the unclenching of a jaw. Mason grabs his own suitcase and then has no option but to look at me.

Mason is no longer angry at the fact that I hadn't wanted to speak to him; his eyes find my face, and I take notice of how sad he looks. He is not angry; he is sad. For a split second anyway, he then clenches his jaw again. I wanted to tell him what was really going on and how what I needed to do didn't need to be messed up in this drama.

This drama was from the past. The drama that I now possess would be in the present. I had to choose one over the other, and the other was so much more important today.

I clear my throat and then say, "Thanks for coming." His eyebrow moves up as soon as I say that, like he is questioning why I would be saying that. I can't help but chuckle out of nervousness as I say, "Well, thank you for taking care of my siblings. They definitely loved you."

Mason nods curtly once, and before I can say anything else to him, he turns his suitcase to the side and then starts to walk away. This was it. Our goodbye. After being reunited again, we were to be split apart again. The goodbye—which was not even a proper goodbye—felt harder than it needed to be.

You knew of this, Thea. The whole reason you didn't want to spend time with him again.

I lick my lips and then walk toward the way he went. But even though our distance was only five feet, we were more apart than we ever were.

Mason's uber arrives, and he heads into it, and as he does so, his eyes find mine. We have done this before; our eyes shout at each other before he blinks and then looks away. That was harder than it needed to be.

🖤

Everything I'm doing is awfully still, as if I'm afraid to give any indication of what I'm doing. I put my keys down on the bookshelves by my door and then moved down to take off my shoe. After that is done, I look forward to my apartment.

Home, sweet home.

I want so badly to make my presence known, but I also don't want to draw attention to myself. I don't know what I was trying to do, but making noise and shouting that I was home was not one of them. I was going to do this quietly because it hurts. It hurts for my fiance to not have heard that I came home.

He doesn't have work right now. It was around eight o'clock at night, which meant he was home. But where was he? And where was the excitement that I was supposed to feel at being away from my significant other and finally coming back? I didn't feel the excitement.

Instead of feeling the emotions that make me feel as though I am doing an internal cartwheel, I feel sad. The emotions are switched out.

I move my suitcase toward the bedroom and then stand outside the room. I didn't know what I was going to do. But I needed to see him; he was in the bedroom. He had to be aware that I had been checking the rest of the apartment as I walked toward here. The door is closed, which isn't a surprise.

I take a deep inhale in, feeling as though my breath was shaky, and then put my hand on the doorknob. I turn the doorknob, and while closing my eyes tightly, I push the door open. I open my eyes to find my fiance sitting on the bed, his phone in one hand and his head in the other.