WHAT COMES AFTER THE END OF THIS

Chapter 41

Chapter 41

Yrene's PoV

I tell Jason to wait in the car while I go inside; immediately I am hugged by Chase and kissed on the forehead by Bear. I smile gratefully at the two goofballs before both of them stand back and admire my look. 

"You look  beautiful baby sister." Bear lets out a low whistle.

"Yeah..." Chase seems to be dazed resulting in me looking at him funnily.

"Thanks guys." 

I hug them both in turn and Bear fastens a sleek band of diamonds around my wrist, which I undoubtedly love,  and leave  both of us alone saying that he has business elsewhere. 

Chase quickly, with the speed of lightning, goes up to his room and brings out a square shaped box, wrapped in silver wrapping paper,

"Open it."

 He urges me and I oblige him by doing just that as, excitement which makes me feel giddy runs through my head. 

In the Catier box lay the most beautiful piece of jewelry I have ever seen, not too big and not too small, the perfect size, an emerald pendant lined with tiny diamonds hanging on a diamond chain. 

I gasp at the sight, it is all I can manage to do as the precious stone glints under the warm lighting of Chase's villa; it would look perfect with the gown my dad had gifted me. 

Tears line my eyes as I look more closely at the article in question and being given it by the man of my dreams makes it all the more special.

"I didn't know what you'd like but I thought that according to your neck structure and your personality of not being too showy or flashy it would be suitable enough. I know it's not too much but-"

I cut him off with a sweet kiss which he is too taken aback to return immediately or so I assume before he can finish the sentence. 

"It's beautiful and the fact that you put so much thought into choosing  it makes it all the more so. Thank you Chase. It's perfect."

He smiles and kisses my forehead,

"There's also something I need to talk to you about." 

"Sure. What's up?" 

"Yrene...I-I...do you remember when I said this was only to get you out of my system? This whole romance thing?" 

I am, all of a sudden confused, very confused, I have no idea where this is going but my gut feeling  tells me that it is not going to be too good. Or remotely good even. 

So I nod, at a loss for words, not that I would be able to get them out through the dry passage of my throat anyways.

"Well I just want to say thank you for doing this with me because I have actually been successful in getting you out of my system. Romantically, that is." 

He gives me an over the top bright smile which I can se through and tell that is fake.... but maybe not because I thought I knew Chase too, that I meant something to him but I did not as it had turned out and maybe I was looking too much into this smile business too.

My breath gets caught in my throat, my lungs burn as do my eyes due to the sting of tears. 

My heart breaks into a thousand pieces at once and I repeatedly call myself a fool for having actual feelings for him, feelings other than pure lust and I feel like an idiot for thinking that he'd had any feelings for me too. People don't like messy. And I was messy. They like simplicity and I was over complicated. People don't like putting broken pieces together, they don't like puzzles and I was exactly that, broken beyond repair. Fool. A bloody, idiotic fool. Dumb bitch. 

Stupid for thinking he liked me as much as I liked him. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid for falling for him. For falling for someone who was as forbidden for me as the apple in the garden of Eden for Eve.

But I cannot let him know this, not let him know my thoughts, not now. He is not, after all, bound to me in any form of relationship whatsoever, and it is not like I have ever told him how I really felt so at least he doesn't know just how broken and pathetic I am and so I do what I do best. 

I out in my brightest fake smile, will my tears to retreat and look up at the him, directly into the those eyes I have fallen so hard for,

"Yes, of course, Chase." 

"But we can be friends right?"

"Goodnight Chase." 

Without so much as hug I leave his house and as soon as I reach the gates I let the tears flow freely before getting myself together; I would not let anyone else see me in this pathetic state.

 I am done with fucking sympathies and sweet nothings for good, so done!

 Locking away the tears and memories for later that night I re-enter the car with an unfazed expression, matched of course with a radiant fake smile which, by the way, is replaced when I see Jason's confused expression upon seeing it. 

"So...how'd it go with Chasey?" The way he calls him Chasey reminds me of just what the man had meant to me, means to me and how I have lost him but I try not to let anything slip and give him a confident nod, before he adds on another limb to the question asked prior, "He your boyfriend though?"

"What? No, no, we're just friends if anything." 

I lie straight through my teeth, well, not really lie considering the fact that Chase had never really highlighted my role in his life or let me know of my standing, other than his pastime of course. I am sure Jason knows that I do have strong feelings for Chase because he knew that it was to him I had run in order to feel better when Jason had saved me and now not giving him the status of boyfriend seemed odd, admittedly, even to me.

I mutter out the last part and we drive on.
~*~
Chase's PoV

I hated myself for what I had done to her;  I had promised to never hurt her but I had broken her tonight, I saw it in her eyes, the expression that something inside of her had snapped completely and perhaps what had snapped was maybe her faith in myself or love. 

She could charm the world with those bright smiles but I knew better than that, it was a facade to cover up the broken, crying girl inside. I had seen right through it and I knew I had hurt her bad but I would make up for it; I would explain to her at the gala why I had done what I had.

 My angel deserved an explanation and she'd get one in due time but I couldn't give it to her now, I wanted her to be at peace when she was bound to Jason on Thursday. I wanted her to not think of me, or at least not think of me as her lover when the ring marked with another mans name would be slipped onto her finger; I wanted her to feel like she was not doing anything wrong by being engaged to someone else, because I was not selfish enough to tie her down to e like that.

'Great work Chase!'

My subconscious seems to be angry at me for hurting Yrene so bad. 

You have succeeded in making the woman you love the most hate you! The woman you actually loved, not Alison, you never loved Alison but Yrene...you have broken her! 

It  continued jeering at me as I tried to convince myself that maybe I had confused lust for love with Yrene but deep down I knew it was love and that what I had with Alison was lust and not the love that I had convinced myself it to be. 

I shattered the glass of scotch in my hand and then one by one all the tumblers in my kitchen cabinets along with any other breakable substance I could find then amidst the broken glass I sat down with a bottle of vodka and lit up a cigarette from one of the packets I had taken from Yrene all that time back. 

I didn't know when or how the glass had cut into my thighs or hands but it didn't matter, the alcohol had made me numb, no the emotional pain was much greater than any other and that was outed the physical pain. 

I cried but I didn't feel the tears flow just as I didn't feel the blood drip, and some time later that night my brother found me and took me to my room and called my sister in law to dress and stitch my wounds.

 But I didn't care, because the one person I truly loved was no longer by my side.