OK, so I need to clarify something. Christy's coffee-shop manager's name is DAN, not Chip. Chip is Ally's fiance's police officer best friend. I know I mistyped that in an earlier chapter, but I went back and fixed it. So don't be confused. :)
Hunter's POV
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My mind personified my trip, wandering aimlessly through the darkness of outer Nashville.
I drove, and drove, and drove. I had no idea what I was thinking when I kissed her.
I knew it wasn't right. It was too soon. And I was pathetic.
Pathetic. That's what it was. It really was pathetic. Who was I to ask her on a date? Since when were either one of us in a position to like each other, let alone see each other?
I pulled over to the side of the road, ten miles outside of the city, the long, winding road dimly lit by one street light. And I sat in silence.
I knew I had ruined it. In one sense, she had told me straight-up that it wasn't a date, that she wasn't ready, that she didn't like me like that. Well, she didn't say she didn't like me, but that's what I'm sure she meant.
Which was part of the problem. I realized then that my wherewithal to even pursue her was based solely on assumptions and presumptions. That she felt the same connection I'd felt. That she'd be willing to give it a chance.
But what had she meant, "I'm not sure I'm unsure?"
I was almost positive that was heat of the moment. That she felt bad. After everything that had transpired in the previous week, she might've felt bad for me.
I was the one being pitied, when part of my whole mission was to eliminate the pity and replace it with something that would be so much more filling, and I thought she could've been that replacement. That our paths crossing was more than a coincidence. What I'd felt with her, was something I'd not felt with anyone else, and yet we hardly knew each other, and had barely managed two 'dates' that'd turned out disasters in their own rights.
Everything about this was wrong. Everyone said it was 'unnatural'. Now I saw that.
Relationships don't have to start naturally.
But this was almost weird.
I had to let her go.
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Christy's POV
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I sat in the darkness of my apartment, waiting for the call that'd say "I was wrong to not believe you," for the text that'd tell me he felt like the kiss was real, that the feelings he seemed to radiate were real.
That call, that text, nothing ever came.
And I sat in that darkness for hours, not reaching out to anyone, not doing anything productive. At some point I fell into a shallow and hopeless sleep, still wearing the flats I'd worn to dinner.
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Saturday came and went without much event, and without another word from Hunter. It was hard for me to believe that just days before I'd been borderline creeped out by his persistence and insistence and since that first time, I'd had a shady suspicion of something underlying that seemed to infect his personality around me. It wasn't a bad thing at all. And it didn't really bother me.
But it would've bothered me had I not discovered my own underlying misunderstanding of any feelings I'd had towards him.
I realized last night that those feelings even existed. And it was my own fault for being naive enough to not realize it until it was too late, after he'd begun to slip away. And now my fears were slowly becoming reality.
