Alone in Marriage

Chapter Seventeen

The next morning, Erica woke up with a bad feeling down to the bottom of her heart. It felt like what she afraid the most had become reality. She put her palm on her chest to calm her frantic heart beats and took a few deep breaths. She left her bedroom and went toward Arnold's. In front of his door, she paused a moment and closed her eyes before she turned the knock.

After the door was opened, she opened her eyes slowly. They scanned his entire room, there was no sound from the shower room and his suit that she put on the hanger was gone. She gripped her skirt, trying to be calm although she was ninety percents sure now. Despite that, she kept telling herself to not break down.

She turned around and made her way down. Step by step she was closer to the kitchen. She gripped her skirt tighter and tighter till her knuckles were white. The pain was slowly making it's way in to her heart. When she finally arrived, it was empty. No sign of him at all. Tears finally rolled down her face, "I knew it was coming!" she whispered softly. She grabbed the door frame and leaned to it. 

One appearance of his ex-girlfriend was enough to destroy what they had built for more than half a year. What's this showed? This showed that he still love her, and there was no room for other. She looked like a selfish person, but maybe there was something in her that attracted his interest. She was indeed a very beautiful woman, only a small amount of men won't fall for her.

Erica felt like her whole body lost it's strength, with the support of the door frame, she slowly lowered herself to the floor. Her lips trembled from trying to suppress her cry. All along she was wishing for a foolish dream. How could he love her when his heart already belonged to someone else.Tears flowed down unstoppable, no matter how she wiped them off, they kept pouring. He was correct, he would never loved her, that was absolutely impossible.

The memories of what she had gone through since she met him were playing in her mind. Their first meet, their dates, the heart warming proposal, their wedding day, the miserable beginning of her marriage life, his caring side, her run away, his promise, and their Christmas's moments, lastly was the meeting with his ex-girlfriend yesterday. Finally, she realized how her world was crumbling, her helpless dream was doomed to never come true.

After a while, she finally calmed down. She took a deep breath and wiped off the tears from her face. Her eyes looked dim without any beam of hope or happiness. She stood up and took a glass of water, then gulped down all of it. She sat down, without any appetite she decided to skip breakfast.

There is only one way out of this mess. If he was hesitating, let me do the first step. This has to come to an end.

She went to her room, grabbed her notebook and made her way to the living room. She sat down on the couch and put her notebook on the table. She connected to the Wifi and started browsing in the internet. She typed 'procedure for divorce' in the searching bar and a bunch of result popped out on the screen. She read some of them and noted down what she thought was important. Next she looked up for the requirements. She found out, they would need to wait for 6 months to a year to finalize the divorce.

"What a long period! I think I should talk to Arnold, maybe he can pull some string to speed up the process." She talked to herself.

This is my last resort to protect myself. The pain would be too much if he was the one that brought it up.

Her mood turn sour when she thought about leaving him, the thought of it already made her feel an unbelievable pain, she didn't know how she could cope up with it when she finally left. But she knew she would pull it through, because she had to. She had to do it not for herself,but for the people around her.

She eyes widened with sudden realization, "How to explain this sudden divorce to them?" She was baffled that she had made a decision without put everything into consideration and decided it based on her emotion and selfishness to run away.

She massaged her forehead to reduce her headache. "What to do?"

She kept thinking back and fort, but she still couldn't figure out how to convince them that this was for the best. To tell them the true was not the option, but other than that there was no other reason that were acceptable.

"Maybe I should just talk to Arnold, let him settled everything first and tell the other after we are officially divorced." She didn't like to do thing behind their back, she told herself this was the only way out. If she continued on like this, she would sink into depression and that's not what she hope for her future, she could live on without her love, but she won't allow herself to be drown in self pity.

She raised her head and took a look at the clock. She was shocked that it had already twelve at noon. Look like she was so deep in thought that time flew away without she noticing. Since, she had decided, it's better to get it done sooner. So she thought she should go to talk to Arnold thoroughly.

She got herself ready to go out. When she was outside, she realized the weather was as gloomy as her state of mind. It was cloudy and looked like it would rain sooner or later. So, she went back inside to grab a umbrella. She walked on foot, with her mood right now, she wasn't in the ideal condition to drive, and walking could help her clear her mind too.

After walking for several minutes, it's started raining, so she opened her umbrella. The distance from their house to the company was quite far.  After half an hour she finally arrived at the street across the company. She saw Arnold was at outside talking to some people. Erica felt the pain in her heart just looking at him.

Her heart suddenly beating so fast. She touched her chest, What is this? Why did my heart beat this frantically? Is something bad gonna happen?

She moved her gaze from Arnold and started looking around anxiously. Then she saw a man dressed in black from hat to shoes who was looking at Arnold. When she saw a glimpse of gun from his coat, her eyes widened. Shouting would be useless in this bustling street. So she threw her umbrella and ran, she ran as fast as she could.

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Author's Note!!!

Such a gloomy chapter. I am really having a hard time to write it down. This isn't the original plan for the story line, but I think this one is alot better.