I Blame Wattpad for My High Expectations of Men

Chapter 68 - I don't deserve you

~Flashback Continued~

When Christian left us to be alone, I didn't expect Ace and I to go completely silent.

        But he we are, still holding hands, and not a single word has yet to leave either of our mouths.

        When I first made my decision, I didn't debate it much because it felt like the right thing to do. But now, as his strong fingers coil perfectly around mine, it suddenly feels like the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

        I have to let him go; I know that much, but maybe that's exactly why it hurts more the second time around. When I first left Ace, I did it under the impression that he broke us. But now I'm well aware that it had been me all along. I didn't fight nowhere near as hard as he did, and for that, I'll forever suffer the consequences of my actions.

"I guess I'm the one who owes you an apology," I'm the first to say after a long while, but all I receive back is more silence. Can't say I blame him, though. I let him have a few more minutes to himself before I finally release his hand, asking him, "the morning after our first time together, do you remember that?"

        The fully packed breath that follows right after he -most likely- recalls the event in his head, is the first thing to leave his lips.

"Of course, I remember. Who wouldn't?" He then rhetorically asks, finally looking up at me as I continue to look at anything but him. I don't deserve to look at those mesmerizing chocolate brown eyes after everything I've done. And now that I think about it, maybe I never did.

"So then, you also remember asking me what I meant when I said that I wasn't all that innocent either."

"I do, and I also remember that you never told me...but what does any of that have to do with now, Lola. With us? Who gives a-"

"Two days before you approached me for the first time after the night we met," I proceed to make my point, "Kelsey and I made a bet to see if she can get me to enjoy five romance books on Wattpad, a website I soon realized was sponsored by the Devil himself."

"What are you-"

"Please," I breathe out helplessly, clasping my hands together before finally looking up at him with a small smile, "just let me finish." He sighs, nodding his head for me to continue.

"If I won, which I did, she'd never nag me about my hate for romance novels ever again. She's always been one of the few people who knew about my commitment issues, and that the reason behind my strong dislike of romance novels was because I found them to be so unrealistic -again, due to my commitment issues. So, she challenged me to prove that." The newly profound expression on his face shows me that he remembers the night he had locked us up in a bathroom -where I eventually admitted that Kelsey challenged me- but I've never fully elaborated on that moment until now. "Kelsey demanded that she'd choose the guy that I'd test my theory on," I further explain, "and because she had already sensed the sexual tension between us ever since the ATO party, she ended up choosing you. You were the ultimate 'bad boy,' so it was perfect. I just didn't know it'd take all that happened between us to prove it."

"Prove what exactly?" He retorts. His voice isn't fully raised, but it's most definitely getting there. Again, I don't blame him. "I'm well aware that our story wasn't perfect, especially after everything we've just discovered, but I'm not going to stand here and believe that what we had wasn't real and beautiful in its own way."

"To prove that I was right for never believing that something like that could ever last, Ace," I truthfully tell him. "Yes, you're right. Our story was beautiful, and the love we shared was beyond anything that words can describe but when you, my subject of all people," I still chuckle in disbelief at the sound of that, "made me cave in and throw all my perspectives on romance and love out the window, I didn't even realize that I was being blindsided by the reality of it all. That there were too many factors that still would've managed to separate us, which they did; and that there was always going to be something in the way that'd prevent us from truly being happy, which there was...Otherwise, I wouldn't be standing here telling you this only moments away from your wedding rehearsal."