Thunderstorms

Determined

Maia's POV:

His hair was longer, his accent had become thicker, and there was a light stubble growing on his face... but he was still Alex, the one who had broken my heart into a million pieces. My legs were shaking and my voice trembled when I got back to the barn, and for what was left of the day, I couldn't concentrate on a single thing I was doing. I let Riley and Georgie know about what had happened, but only so they wouldn't worry about me. As much as I would have liked to go out for coffee with Alex after so long,. I knew I was taking the right decision by declining his offer, even though I was dying inside. I was only preventing myself from keeping on suffering because of him. It was probably going to be way much better if we just never crossed ways again, but somehow, it looked like we were connected by some kind of thread that would never allow us to pull away that far from each other for too long.

"Are you ok?" James asked. We were sitting on the couch of our new flat. We'd moved out together a couple of months before he'd proposed to me, and to be honest, I had been enjoying my time with him like crazy. That is, of course, until Alex decided to show up again.  Now, my mind wouldn't focus on anything else but him. "You've been kind of tense since you came back from the barn. Did something happen?"

"Uhhh, no" I quickly denied. "I'm just tired, that's all"

"You know, we can just go to bed, we'll finish watching the movie some other day" 

"Oh, no, no" I replied, pecking James in the lips. "I promised I would watch it with you" He smiled at me.

"I wish I didn't have to go on that trip, you know" He said. James was supposed to be heading to Manchester for work tomorrow night, and he was going to be staying there for two weeks.

"I'm going to be alright, Jay"

"I know, I'll just miss you, is all"

"I'll miss you too" I chuckled, and leaned in to kiss him. It would have been a perfect kiss if it hadn't been for Angora jumping right between the middle of us, meowing in the process. "Angora!" I scolded her, but lickily, James was laughing. "I'm sorry, Jay, it's just a bad habit of hers"

"Don't worry, I've grown used to it already" I smirked at him, and after we'd finished watching the movie, we went straight to bed and cuddled up. Still, it was one of my worst nights ever, because as I was lying on James' chest, I couldn't help but wish he was Alex, no matter how hard I tried erasing that thought off my mind. I spent most of the night wondering about him, and to my surprise, I received a text from him at three in the morning.

"Hey, Mai, I took the liberty of sending you this message because I know you're just as awake as I'm right now, and you're probably thinking about what happened today. I really hope you'll change your mind about coffee. I'm glad to see you're doing fine"

I didn't answer, I couldn't bring myself to do so. I felt the hot tears running down my cheeks, and reluctantly left the phone on the bedside table. I rested my face on the pillow, just as James unconsciously hugged me in his sleep, which only made me sadder. Again, Iwas starting to feel misery at its top.

The next day, I went to the stables while James stayed at home, getting his suitcases ready for his work trip. A million thoughts wew swirling in my mind, but I soon left them behind when I got on Zodiac's back. I needed to focus on our training, or otherwise, we were going to get nowhere. Besides, his training today was more special than the rest, given that I had decided to change the plans and make him do some dressage instead of jumping. It was going to help him answer better to my aids, and he was a little all-rounder, so he got the hang of dressage pretty quick. Today also had another twist beyond that: not only were Zodiac and I going for dressage, but we were also going to be doing it to the beat of "Knee Socks". No matter how hard I'd tried forgetting about Alex, that song never failed to make me smile, and with it, it also brought to my mind our best memories together.