One Chance: a Ted Sweeran fanfic

Ch 40

Ed's POV

Cara had called me to ask if we could meet at the hotel she had been staying at since Harry had kicked her out of their place because of me. When I heard he had done this, I wanted to pound his head against the wall until he agreed to take her back. Especially with the pregnancy, I had found it actually completely unbelievable that he would ditch her just because we kissed, but he had disabled his phone because no matter how many times I called, I was still met with the robotic voice claiming the number was not available.

As I reached her door I sucked in a breath, wondering how me visiting her hotel room would look if any of the paparazzi saw me. I had been careful to avoid the vultures on my way here, but if there was one thing I had learned in marrying the world's biggest female celebrity of our generation was that moments of privacy were few and far between, and almost everyone would do something for money.

I rapped on the solid oak door, taking in the splendor of the place. Cara definitely had good taste, what with the gold detail and the paintings that had been bought by personal collectors across the world, this place spared no expense, as I'm sure the clients did as well.

Cara opened on the second knock, and her usual perfect appearance was matted into the frazzled woman who stood before me.

"Hi Ed, I'm glad you came on such short notice, I just was over with Taylor, and, well first come in," she grabbed me by my coat collar and hastily ushered me into the room. As she was closing the door she must have stumbled as she lost her balance and fell to the floor, only to bring me down on top of here.

Yes, it was one of those cheesy scenes you would see in American chick flicks, but being that close to her, my heart was pounding so hard I felt I might burst.

"I...I'm very sorry," Cara blushed, but made no move to get up. Only the thought of Taylor alone and broken in our apartment could pull me away from her enveloping stare, and I quickly got to my feet and helped her up as well.

"I don't know what's wrong with me lately," Cara admitted. "It seems like I'm making a mess every where I go." And then the tears came.

I had seen too many girls cry in the past month to count on my hands, and as I leaned in to comfort her, I wondered if the sound of broken sobs would ever stop reverberating through the shallow caverns of my mind.

"Cara, you know that's not true, if anything it's everyone else screwing you over."

Instead of helping this only served to augment her pain, and her sobs turned into wails of desperation.

Great Ed, talking to the pregnant woman about getting screwed, what next? my subconscious tormented.

I decided the best thing to do was to let the tide of her tears flow and ebb on its own, and as I rocked her in my arms, eventually with a final sniffle she excused herself to go 'freshen up'. Two minutes spent in the bathroom and she came out completely transformed into her usual flawless physique; the only evidence of her breakdown being the redness that had left its mark upon her beautiful eyes.

She sat down next to me on the bed, and I felt the weight shift on the mattress from her presence. She took my hand onto her lap, and giving it a squeeze began telling me the reason for her call.

"Abigail's going to turn herself in," Cara informed me and looked at me intently as if gauging my reaction.

"Good, that's what she deserves," I immediately replied, though my voice faltered, giving away the remorse I was feeling as well.

I wanted to hate Abigail for what she had done; she had practically destroyed my wife and caused us to lose our baby. But that was the cruel thing about life: you didn't get to choose. Taylor didn't get to choose whether she would get her heart broken or not once she fell for all those guys before me and as she gave them all her love and all they gave her was goodbye. I didn't choose to have a coma and have my feelings and loyalties twisted ever since. Neither of us got a choice when our close friend turned on us and left scars too deep to mend. Yet we still love. Despite how completely screwed up the circumstances, we as people still give everything we've got to the wrong people whether in friendship or any other way, and we get to stick around when it crashes and burns and we are left with the tide consuming us yet we don't drown.