BROKEN

31. BROKEN

A/N: I recently found out that two characters were bearing the same name (Hillary's wife and Lauren's friend) so I'm changing the name of Hillary's wife to 'Lizzy'

'Never fight a man in his weakest state, if you eventually conquer him; it won't make you a winner but a coward'

WEEKS LATER

~NICK~

Melissa informed me of Lauren's visit and how she has managed to pack most of her belongings from the house and I knew she'd probably acted nasty towards Melissa as I study how uneasy she was acting.

“Are you okay? Did Lauren say something to you?” I asked with concern trying to lift her chic to meet my eyes but she averted eye contact.

“I am fine, sir and she didn’t say anything” She displayed a forced smile and I could tell she was lying.

“Where is she?” I asked dumping the backpack and car keys on the chair.

“In her room”

I look at the stairs and sighed. So Lauren made up her mind to ruin me for good and pursue a fruitless fantasy with her husband’s friend. What is she turning to?

“How is my son?”

“Sleeping, sir”

“Thank you for everything and for being here for us at this period” I gave her a genuine smile and made to go upstairs but remembered something, “One more thing, please call me Nick. The ‘sir' makes me look kind of old”

She smiled at me and nodded in reply before walking to the kitchen.

I left her and walked into the room where Lauren once occupied as she’d moved out of the master bedroom. I found her zipping her last packed box and was about to take them out when she saw me and stopped in her track gazing at me, albeit with anger.

“You detest me that much to sneak in and pack your things when I’m away to work” I leaned on the door frame with my hands shoved into my pocket.

She snorted. “Sneak in? Nick, this is my house too and I can decide to come in whenever I want with or without your permission”

“You’re moving out?” I asked looking at the remaining two boxes left in the room.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” She throwback and pick up the boxes.

"All I ever did was to love you and that I’ve realized was my only mistake towards you. I gave you everything, Lauren. When everyone asked me to leave you, I stayed, you know why? Because I love you so much so that I thought that was enough. Now, I know I was wrong"

All this while I spoke, she'd been rolling her eyes in annoyance.

“I want you to know one thing though. All those years you profess love to me, were you saying it out of pity? Or you were pretending”

"Here we go again” She roll her eyes and sighed, “Look, I'm sorry, Nick, we'd knew it will eventually come to this but we just didn't want to take a peek at the reality even when it was staring at us right in the face. Whatever cloud we were living in doesn’t exist anymore, wake up and face reality!”

"What reality? Hills and you?" I let out a mirthless laugh "How could you do this to me? That's my best friend, Lauren! And you are my wife"

“Not for long” She bites back picking up her handbag.

“Do you love him?” I waited patiently to hear her admit it. I know I shouldn’t have asked but I wanted to hear her say it to my face.

“I...I appreciate everything you’ve done for me...”