Just Another Crazy Coincidence

Chapter 12:

“I’ll get us some coffee’s,” Corey says after he has told Adrianna the modified version of what happened yesterday.

As he walks away from the table, Adrianna slumps back down in her chair. She decided last night that she needs to be upfront with Corey; about why she is here, where her focus is and where her head is at regarding relationships. It’s a personal matter, and she has not known Corey all that long, so it is understandable that she is a little bit hesitant, and nervous about exposing so much of herself to him. While Adrianna doesn’t want to lead Corey on, she also doesn’t want him to walk away from her. She does like him, and Jacob was right when he said that she was beginning a new life, a whole new life, and that isn’t something she can just put off. If she finds her parents and they want nothing to do with her, then where does she go from there? Home? Does she stay and have nothing, no purpose anymore but to sleep, breathe, eat and work? She has been so focused on what will happen when and if she finds them, that Adrianna has neglected to look at the bigger picture. She has not thought about what happens after her search is over, and now she is, and she would very much like Corey to be a part of the ‘after’ stage - but she needs him to know where she is coming from. Adrianna doesn’t expect him to wait around for her, but she hopes they can be friends for the time being, and revisit and reevaluate how they feel when she has less on her mind.

Corey sits back down across from Adrianna, and takes in her pensive frown. “What’s on your mind?”

Adrianna sits herself up straight and leans forward, this is serious - she is serious. “There’s something I want to talk to you about, and I just need you to hear me out, okay?”

Corey feels his heart sinking, “so you didn’t just need another dose of my endless charm and witty comments, then.”

“That’s exactly what I needed, no, what I wanted.” she pauses after she rephrases, then there isn’t much else to do but just say what she has to say, because what she has to say could very well just be the end of her and Corey, before they even begin. “It’s just that I want us to be on the same page.”

“Well I’m in chapter three on page 27, how about you?”

Adrianna wants to laugh, she knows that Corey is just trying to lighten the mood between them, but she can’t. Her smile is only halfway there before it flatters and she focuses her gaze on the table in front of her.

Corey leans forward across the table and picks up Adrianna’s hands in his own, immediately loving the way it feels to be touching her, even in the simplest and most innocent of ways. “Sorry, it’s a reflex.” It’s his defense, the way Adrianna is talking and the look she has on her features has completely stomped out the spark of hope he had left. Still, even as a hopeless man, when it comes to Adrianna he will be a selfish man; he will not back down quite so easily. “Listen, I know that it was a bumpy start-” he pauses as a waitress slides their coffee’s onto the table. “And I mean that in a literal sense. I am about as unimpressive as someone can come, and I know I am way out of my league here. I don’t expect anything from you at all, but I would very much like to know you better, and to be a part of your life - however you can fit me in.”

She is more conflicted than ever. Adrianna stares at their hands, Corey’s thumb is rubbing circles on the back of hers, leaving a tingling sensation in it’s wake. He is so sweet, so gentle - maybe that’s what she needs. “I want to fit you in. I want to know you better, too. I didn’t really give you the benefit of the doubt, I was so closed minded but you blew the doors wide open again, and everyone speaks so highly of you. The thing is, while that’s what I want, there’s something I have going on right now that requires the better part of my attention. I wanted to be upfront with you now, rather than to be pulling away from you further down the track. I don’t want to come across as presumptuous, but I actually would like to see where this goes - I just don’t have the energy to focus on a relationship right now."