Throw Your Colors at the Dark {Vic Fuentes}

Epilogue 2 - Light Up the Dark

    My eyes were in disbelief as I rounded the corner at the grocery store, heart dropping to my feet as I attempted to hide both my surprise and dismay from my daughter who sat in the shopping cart.  She was busy playing with her little tiger doll luckily so I had enough time to change my expression before she looked up at me with a beautiful smile.  Her lightly tanned skin was all Vic, all beautiful while her bright green eyes were all me.  I don’t know how she managed to inherit my eyes, but they suited her light brown skin and hazel colored hair.  Her beautiful smile made my heart sing whereas moments before it had been filled to the brim with dread as I eye-spied who had been coming down the aisle towards us.

    And I was sure he had seen the two of us.

    It had been years since I had seen the tall, dark haired and blue eyed man that I had once been the fiancée to.  Vic had come into my life like a sudden storm and swept me away from Jeremy all in one night, in one instant where I knew my life would never be right without the dark skinned boy.  I knew that one day Jeremy and I would see one another again though because it was an inevitability when you lived in the same town.  I tried not to shop at the same places where we used to go, but even then I knew I was going to see him again.  I just didn’t think it was going to be while I was grocery shopping for a cookout with the guys with my daughter in the shopping cart.  Honestly I had never really wanted her to meet this man but I guess nothing really ever goes the way you want it or expect it to.  Things just work out.

    I clung to the small fragment of hope that he wouldn’t see us or recognize me for that matter.  Perhaps he’d just smile and keep walking, never knowing that I was the girl he had almost married seven long years ago.  Selene was now five years old so I knew it had been at least seven years since it all happened.  Guess I was only keeping count of how long Vic and I had been married; five years with a five year old daughter said how busy we had been but I made him promise that one was all we would have.  Kids were too expensive nowadays.

    I shook my head as I went off course again, nearly running into the shelves as I mulled over my thoughts.  Selena laughed.

    “Mommy,” she scolded though the grin on her lips told me how truly entertained she was.  I ruffled her hair.

    “Shush my little mon cherie,” I whispered endearingly and she giggled again.  “Perhaps mon petit monstre is more suitable for you.”

    “What does that mean mommy?”

    “It means, my little monster!”  She squealed when I tickled her, dark curly locks bouncing as she tried to get away.  I laughed heartily and kissed her quickly on the cheek, her tiny giggle like musical notes; she had inherited that gift from her father, that was for sure.

    “Alouette?”

    The voice floored me, my eyes widening as I realized we had passed the man I hadn’t wanted to have a conversation with.  I didn’t want Selene to meet him, to ask questions as to who he was; all along all I had dearly and desperately wanted was for Jeremy to be fitfully erased from my life.  For all that I had loved him, he had also been a part of my life that had brought me down into darker depths of my soul.  He was a good man, honest and true, but not for me.  I was too bright in color for his darker manner.

    I turned about to meet those cerulean orbs, the confusion and hope in them startling.

    “Is it really you?”  I furrowed my brows, feigning bewilderment and trying to appear as though I didn’t know him.  “It’s…it’s Jeremy, you know me.” 

    “I…hey Jeremy,” I stammered out, wincing at the sound of his name on my lips.  I hid Selene behind me, not wanting her to see him.

    “Wow uh…shit uh how are you doing?”  I had never heard him be so informal since we left college.  I must have really shocked him today.