Made For Each Other [On Hold]

Chapter 9 - Adrien

I bounced in my seat at our little cafe, impatiently waiting for her to arrive.

Oh, Marinette, there's so much I have to tell you! Please, please hurry up. I can't wait for you to get here.

"Adrien?" her soft voice whispered behind me and I leaped three feet into the air.

I spun around clutching my heart. "Marinette! You scared the bejeesus out of me."

"Sorry," she smiled, her eyes twinkling with hidden humour.

I laughed it away, "No, don't worry."

I pulled her chair out before sitting back down in my own. I smiled through the pounding of my heart and silently wondered why it hadn't calmed down yet.

I shook my head and smiled, "So how have you been?"

"You mean since I saw you yesterday?" her eyes laughed. "Great. What about you?"

I rubbed the back of my neck. Duh, Adrien. Don't be such an idiot. "Right. Pretty good actually. Things with Lila and I are going great."

Something flickered behind her eyes but was gone so quickly that I must have imagined it.

"Oh?" she tilted her head to the side.

"Yeah, she's amazing. We had lunch today, and she got so excited about the modelling shoot she's doing next week that that was all we talked about," I laughed. "And when I was walking her to her car, she walked so confidently it was like she knew she was God's gift!"

I smiled at the memory and failed to notice in my daydreaming Marinette close her eyes.

I was broken back to reality by a phone ringing. Marinette's face turned scarlet and snatched her phone from her purse. "Oh my God, I completely forgot. I'm so sorry. I have to take this."

Master Fu waved her away on the promise she turn it off upon her return, and she scurried out to the garden at the front.

Through the window, opened to let the breezes through, I caught snatches of her conversation, and though I felt terrible about eavesdropping, I felt a strange compulsion not to turn away.

"...I can't do it anymore...lying...it hurts too much," she turned around and the words were clearer. "It's been like this for seven years, Alya, and I can't stand being on the outside looking in anymore. It's too painful. I'm going to do as I've been asked, and then that's it. I'm going to move on."

She turned back around and I missed the rest of the conversation but before long, she was back at our table. "I'm so sorry, Adrien."

She made sure to switch her phone off before sliding it back into her handbag.

I shook my head and smiled, ignoring the twisting I felt at listening in on a private conversation. "Don't worry about."

As she glanced briefly at the menu before turning to the waitress to order the same thing she did every time we meet, I watched her silently. She's in pain. It makes sense. She had been crying when I bumped into her at the restaurant last week and even today she looks a little pale. She said it's been like this for seven years - no wonder she wants to throw in the towel.

"Hey," she turned to me after I'd given the waitress my order and I asked tentatively, "Are you alright? I heard a little of your conversation - I wasn't eavesdropping, I promise! - but I was just wondering if you were okay?"

"What did you hear?" her eyes were wide and her cheeks flushed.

"Just that you're in pain, and you have been for seven years, and you're going to do something that's been asked of you before you move on. That's all, I promise. I just wanted to make sure you were alright," well, damn, now I'm sweating bullets.