Stonehearts 5: Emerald

Fifteen

           

"I'm sorry." Cael muttered out of nowhere.

I bit back a sob before I peeked and saw him gazing ever so serious at me. He may have read the confused and questioning look on my face that urged him to elaborate further.

He shrugged his shoulders and tightened his arms around me. "You know...for that night. You don't know how many times I wished that things turned out differently for the both of us."

I wiped the remaining tear stain on my cheeks before I took a step backward, putting some breathable space between us.

"Why are you telling me this now?" My voice quavered a bit but I still stood steady and firm in front of him.

He stared at me directly, all guards down and he's nothing but vulnerable.

"Because I wasn't able to tell it to you years back."

I gulped down the choking feel in my throat. My heart pounding erratically in my chest. I shook my head to dismiss the building idea. This isn't the time for us to play the flashback card.

"It doesn't matter. If that night didn't happen, Marcus and I wouldn't be together."

"I was thinking the same thing. If that night didn't happen, you and I should've ended up being together."

Silence hung heavily between us. I don't know which should I feel first; guilt because I know how things will end up if we ever continue this conversation or confusion because he's going down the path I managed to bury years ago.

I wasn't Charisma anymore.

I am Era.

Era, who's engaged and shouldn't be playing dangerous games with a man who gave her bittersweet memories, a man who she then considered to be a part of her future, a man who she permitted access to her ridiculously boring world, a man who had her heart for the first time.

I got lost in his tantalizing coffee brown eyes as I searched for an answer to his statement. But I was left with no words. Not one. And just like before, with him, I always lose.

"Won't you, at least, ask my side of the story?" He probed.

Would I want to know?

No.

I closed my eyes, "I don't know."

"Isma–" Then he started to walk towards me again.

"Cael, just stop." I said, holding my hands in front of me, stopping his words and his tracks. "Whatever this macho fantasy you have that keeps you fuelled into pursuing me, I suggest that you should stop it now. Because I'm never going to go down that road with you again, I've been there before and nothing good came out of it."

All the warmth in his eyes disappeared in an instant, as if it was never there in the first place. His eyes went cold and icy and his stance went guarded.

"Is that what you really want?"

"I told you. What we have was never a real thing." I said. Quoting the words I used as a trap card against him. But this time it wasn't me who turned and walked away.

My heart clenched at the sight of him gone.

This is what I wanted. This is the right thing to do. But why does it feel so fucking wrong?

I closed the door and stared into space.

I should be thinking about Marcus and no one else. He's my priority. He's my one and only. He's my future-to-be.