Sorrow's Promise

Chapter 20

IMPORTANT Author's Note: In addition to the trigger warning, I'm issuing a general VIOLENCE/INTENSITY warning even for people not usually affected by the trigger warning. There are two censored versions below, so if you think you might be bothered by the violence, please check those out first.

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TRIGGER WARNING FOR THIS CHAPTER. SEE CENSORED VERSIONS BELOW DOUBLE LINES.

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My mind was still reeling several minutes after Riku left my room. Somewhere deep inside, something was whispering that he was speaking the truth, but I didn't want to hear, couldn't accept it. I kept telling myself that he didn't really know Aiden, not like I did. Maybe Riku was just jealous of him. That's probably what it was. Aiden was always completely unreasonable when he got jealous, too, so it made sense, in a way.

I knew that Aiden could be kind and caring when he wanted to be. He had done so many things for me, and I owed him so much. I never had understood why he had even given me a second glance when we first met, much less asked me to be his girlfriend and start taking care of me like he had. It's not like I was pretty, and I was socially awkward and hard to get along with to top it off. He could have done so much better than me. So what if he was a little controlling sometimes? He was older and smarter than I was, and had friends and a job, too. It made sense for him to be able to tell a nobody like me what to do.

The frilly little bedroom that I was standing in suddenly felt stifling. I needed to go home. I wanted to see Aiden. Maybe that would make me feel better about this whole thing. If I could see him, everything would make sense again.

I opened the portal without a second thought, and stepped through into my apartment. The first thing I noticed was that the bed was missing. Everything was missing, in fact, except for the fixtures that had come with the apartment, a small cardboard box on the kitchen counter, and a mop and broom that were leaning up against the far wall behind the door.

As I was taking all of this in, the front door opened and Aiden stepped in, making my heart skip a beat. He stopped short when he saw me standing there, his expression blank. I smiled, genuinely happy to see him after so long.

"Hey, babe," I greeted him quietly. "Sorry to surprise you like this. I just...really wanted to see you again."

Aiden still didn't say anything, still didn't move. Nervousness began creeping slowly up my throat, but I pressed ahead. "I, uh...see you decided to clean the place out," I noted, gesturing to the empty room. "That's good. There was...really no need to hang onto it, I don't guess." I twisted my mouth to the side, thinking. "I'm sorry that you had to do all of that by yourself, though."

Pressing my hands into my thighs, I stopped talking and waited for him to say or do something. Slowly, he pushed the door shut and took a step further into the room. "Where have you been?" he asked, his voice low.

For some reason it hadn't occurred to me that he would ask those sorts of questions, so I had no answers prepared. "Um...I've been...staying with a friend," I fumbled.

"You don't have friends, Meli," he spat out, walking closer. "So where," he emphasized, "Have you been?"

Now my heart was pounding. I opened my mouth, trying to come up with an answer, but he interrupted me before I could do so. "There's a guy, isn't there?" he demanded. "Look me in the eyes and tell me there's not another guy."