Eternal Flame

Chapter 7

A couple months later

Aria's POV

I panic as soon as I see Jamie walk in and, hoping that he won't see or at least recognize me, I get a random magazine from the coffee table and I'm about to cover my face with it when he looks around and immediately recognizes me and smiles. Of course I had to choose today, out of all days, to insist on coming downstairs to have breakfast instead of staying home as Ezra had suggested.

"Hey," He says when he reaches the couch I'm sitting on and I get up to greet him, "How are you?"

"Good. What about you?"

"Good." He replies, "I haven't seen you in a while."

"Yeah.."

"Are you here alone?"

"No. Ezra's getting our breakfast."

"Oh." He says, "Look, I feel like you've been avoiding me lately and I'm not sure why but if this is about what happened the other day I-"

"Hi," Ezra says when he comes back with our breakfast, cutting Jamie off, "I'm Ezra, Aria's husband." He introduces himself and wraps an arm my waist, "You are?"

"Jamie Green." He replies, "I should probably get going. It was good seeing you, Aria."

"Yeah. You too." I reply.

"Goodbye." He says

"Bye." Ezra and I reply and he and leaves and we sit down on the couch and start eating.

"So that was Jamie..." Ezra says, breaking the silence after a while. He's trying to sound nonchalant but failing miserably and I can't help but find his jealousy adorable.

"Yeah." I reply and sip my coffee.

"I've never seen him around..."

"I'm pretty sure he's never been here before."

"Huh..." He says and turns his attention back to his food, and unlike every other time, the silence that falls between us isn't comfortable. "What was he talking about? Why have you been avoiding him? Did something happen between you two?"

"What? No! Of course not! You can't possibly think I'd ever do something like that."

"I don't know what to think, Aria."

"Maybe you could try to trust me."

"Trust you?" He scoffs, "You're the one who doesn't trust me. You're the one who has been hiding things for months and I've done nothing but trust you. I gave you as much time and space as you needed and barely asked questions no matter how much I wanted to because I knew that whatever it was you were doing, it made you happy and that's the only thing I want but I'm not ok with this." He says and the anger inside of my quickly subsides. I have no right to be mad at him. I'd probably think the same thing, were I in his place but no matter how much I want to, I'm not sure I'm ready to tell him everything yet.

I run my hands through my hair and take a deep breath, "I know where you're coming from and please believe me when I say I'm sorry that I made you feel like that but-"

"Why can't you just tell me? We're married, Aria. We're supposed to share things... talk to each other."

"I know, but... I..."

"You know what? Forget it." He says, then gets up and leaves.

Knowing that going after him right now will only make things worse, I get my car keys and my bag and leave the building. A few minutes later, I'm knocking on my parents' door.