Dawning (Dysmorphia Series #3)

Faithful

"Andrew!"

"Flo!"

She was happy to see that Andrew looked just as glad to see her, all be it from thousands of miles away, he'd been sending her pictures throughout the day from the village they were working in, it had warmed her heart to see the beaming faces of the village children.

Visiting Levi had once again been a life changing experience, she owed him so much and in return he'd asked for so little, she'd ordered him a card and a the biggest box of doughnuts that Krispy Kreme sold, she knew he had a sweet tooth.

It might be a small thanks for everything he'd ever done for her but it would at least prove to him that she didn't take him for granted.

And as for Cole, he hadn't messaged her for three days consecutively and she wanted it to stay that way, she'd been thinking, even had felt passionate enough to write a passage about it because she'd finally cracked it, what she should have known all along.

She was clinging onto Cole because he was her last vestige of Chase, nothing more and nothing less, it was like she was a drowning passenger on the Titanic and he was the last lifeboat left, the only thing saving her from a terrible end at the bottom of the sea, that's why she was so reluctant to let him go, because in a strange way she's thought letting him go meant she didn't love Chase anymore.

But she did love him, and in a twisted way she loved Cole too for everything he was and everything he wasn't, but it wasn't the kind of love that he deserved, looking back on their conversations, Florence had been nothing short of horrible to him, using him as an outlet for all her pain and she needed to make it clear to him that nothing was ever going to happen between them.

She was with Andrew, she loved Andrew and there was no point in loving somebody for the sake of loving them.

"So tell me about your day"

Andrew looked exhausted, her mind had gone off on a tangent and she'd been ignoring him for a good few minutes, looking at his face she could tell all he wanted to do was go to bed, it was at her insistence that he'd suggested their nightly calls and now she felt a stab of guilt, he was being amazing and she was being insecure.

"Andrew, my second day was much, much better I promise, now I know I was the one who suggested you call but it was just that, a suggestion your pictures are enough for today and your clearly weary to the bone, we'll talk tomorrow now go to bed this instant!"

He smiled.

"Trust you to be able to read my mind all the way from Phillipson, thanks I'll definitely call you tomorrow and in the meantime you conquer the writing business and remember that I love you always"

"I love you too"

And there was no pretence in her words as she hung up the phone.

As Florence began to arrange her lipsticks on her dressing table she made a mental plan for the day ahead, she would definitely pay a visit to Cooper and her goddaughter, her parents would be back tomorrow so she would be sure to have dinner waiting for them when they did, it was nice feeling to know that whilst she might not be building water pumps for the dehydrated she could still make her corner of the Earth somehow happier.

Maybe she'd go next year with Andrew, when she didn't have a tour to worry about, but now came possibly the most important phone call of her life.

Cole picked up on the third ring.

"Florence? Is everything okay?"

That sentence alone made her realise just how badly she had treated him, they had no kind of relationship and he thought the only reason she would be calling him was because something was wrong.

For some reason the girl from two days ago, Summer came into her head, the fan who had looked up to her so much, practically put her on a pedestal, they all thought she was such a good person but she was absolutely rotten to the core.

She'd had this whole speech planned out in her head about how she'd made her choice and she was sorry for any of the hurt she'd ever caused him, truly she was.

But some other words decided to slip out of her mouth.

"Is it possible to love two people at the same time?"

The longest silence in history decided to take place there and then.

"It depends... what do you mean by that?"

She couldn't even begin to try and answer that question.

"I love Andrew, I really do when I look at him I see my future all perfectly planned out and that makes me feel happy and secure in knowing there is a promise of a future that for so long I thought I'd never have, but Cole there's something that keeps drawing us together and I know I treat you terribly, I'm mean and grumpy and snarky..."

She had to recollect her thoughts.

"But do you know something? Me and Andrew never argue because there is nothing to argue about, every time we come close he immediately backs down because he doesn't want to upset me, you could call that love or you could call that pity, like he doesn't think I'm capable of having a fight"

"Flo, I don't know what your expecting me to say, you're saying all of this to me now and tomorrow you'll probably be saying something completely different, there's no way of knowing whether you'll be sweet or snide tomorrow, when you left three years ago you broke my heart and now you want me to try and help fix yours?"

He sounded really bitter, like the old Cole had sounded.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have called you, your probably the person in the world who I owe the most apologies, I'm so sorry and I wouldn't ever dream that you would forgive me cause I can't forgive myself"

And then she just hung up the call because there was no point in carrying on when there was nothing else to say, at least for now.

She felt like she still had to talk to people so she messaged Lucy, something offhand and funny because that was there kind of relationship, they bantered between each other for an hour and Florence went to bed still feeling lonely and dreamed that she was trapped in a car that was slowly making its way to the bottom of a sea bed.