Unbroken

Chapter 11

"Just leave the pasty on the table." Chloé said without turning around. "I just want to be alone for now."

"Well that's a shame." Adrien said, causing her to turn her head in surprise. She then looked away from him.

"What are you doing here?" She asked annoyed. "Sabrina, you shouldn't have brought him."

"You needed someone to talk to Chloé." Sabrina said, still standing behind Adrien. "I'll come back later." She directed more quietly to him. The model nodded to her and Sabrina left.

"Shouldn't you be spending your time with your new wife." Chloé said, a bitter undertone in her voice.

"She wanted me to come over." He said approaching a little closer. "Just because I'm married now doesn't mean I don't still care about my friends."

"Bring me one of those eclairs." She grumbled.

"Mind if I join you then?" Adrien asked, picking up a second eclair for himself and taking them over to the lounge. Chloé took her eclair without looking at him. Adrien sat opposite her on the lounge, tucking his feet up in much the same way she had. "You don't have to say anything if you don't want to Chlo. Just know I'm here to listen."

For a few minutes they just sat in a comfortable silence eating their pastries. It wasn't like Chloé to cry about much and he hadn't seen her this way since her breakup with Félix around the end of Lycée.

"It's over." She eventually said quietly, placing her half eaten eclair on the table. Adrien put his own down also and reached out and took one of her hands in his.

"With Luka?" He clarified. She nodded slowly.

"It wasn't his fault. He wanted to stay in New York and I wanted to come back to Paris and well..." She took a deep breath and shook her head. "Let's be honest, Luka and I were really just trying to help each other to move on."

Adrien furrowed his eyebrows at her. "I wouldn't have thought Luka would be a shallow kind of guy."

"Oh no." She said, waving her hand around. "No, Luka was sweet and very loving. He was wonderful and going with him on the tour was like nothing I'd ever done before. It made me feel alive and special." She placed her free hand over the necklace he had given her that was still around her neck. "This morning I watched an interview with him and Jagged Stone, they've been cutting a new album, and he was still wearing the cuff links I gave him, so I guess I must have been good for him too."

"Then what happened?" Adrien asked. "Was it just that he didn't want to come back to Paris?"

"Not exactly." She said looking away from him. "It was more the reason why he didn't want to come back." She turned her sapphire eyes back to Adrien, tears glistening behind them. "You see we were both hurting and in a way we were just trying to fill in the gap, using each other as a crutch if you like. But it's hard to love someone when you know they are still in love with someone else."

Adrien looked at her for a moment as she stared at him intently. "You mean Marientte, don't you?"

"Before I came back Luka admitted he's still in love with her, even though he wanted me to come back and help you two get married. He said he knew that they weren't meant to be and he wanted her to be happy, but he couldn't deal with seeing her, especially being with you."

"I guess I never realised he still felt that way." Adrien looked out the window at the birds sitting on the tables and chairs on the terrace. In a way he wasn't surprised though. Once you fall in love with Marinette, it would be hard to let go, he should know.

"Well, sometimes it's hard to move on from your first real love, the person who you gave your whole heart to." Her voice cracked on the last word and Adrien looked back at her to see a tear slide down her face. He could tell she was talking about herself, not Luka. Adrien knew for a fact that Marinette had never been intimate with Luka, not in the way Chloé meant.