The Diary of Our Love

Chapter 88

He was gone when I woke up. I suppose James left during the little hours I could sleep that night because I didn't hear any noise. I opened the door of the guest room slowly to peek inside but it was empty and I got in and lied down on the bed. I buried my nose in his pillow, feeling his scent and held it really close to me. Somehow, I felt that was our ending and that pillow was what would be left of him. Instantly, my eyes started burning and blurred with water that fell in tiny drops down my face. Knowing that he had taken another woman to his bed was like feeling a knife being stabbed in me over and over again. Even if I knew it had been triggered by his alcoholism there's only so little you can take. After a while, I came back to my room. I took a shower and got dressed and it was not until I got downstairs that another detail would jump in front of my eyes to my own shock. When I was coming down the stairs, I noticed a shiny little thing on the phone table near the door, and right by the side of the keys to my car. As I got close, I noticed it was the ring that I had given him, and under it there was a paper that I read in no flat time.

"You are better off without me.

Maybe one day."

"Maybe one day?" I mumbled to myself.

My instinct had turned right. I took my ring off my finger and put it together with his in the drawer of the phone table. I tapped Disco who was trying to get my attention since I got there and went to the kitchen. My head was running a mile per hour but I trying to calm myself down a bit, I decided to go on with my life normally. So, I had breakfast and left for college though all I wanted was to crawl back to bed, hide under the covers and cry the entire day.

Needless to say, I was physically in there but my mind was so damn far, maybe at Pep's ranch and I didn't have a clue where that was. Hoping he'd change his mind, I checked my cell in the middle of the class, hoping he'd still call me or text me or anything. He had seriously damaged our relationship, but I still felt somehow unsatisfied with the way things turned out. So, was that it? He was gone, and left me two lines note saying he'd be gone? There was no turning back? Couldn't he say it to my face? No... he couldn't. I knew he couldn't.

I knew it was hard for him. So, probably that was the best way he arranged to set me free. I knew he'd never be able to say, "Look Lea, I wanna break up." because that was not humanly possible when we were face to face. Maybe it's for the best... I didn't know if I could forgive him, because he had double hurt me: he had cheated on me and then abandoned me. So, by then, I didn't think I could forgive him easily.

Being as rational as I could, I started taking care of my life as soon as I got home. I called Claire and asked her to schedule me a summer in Europe. I knew she was able to do that. I asked her to keep me in Europe from July until October, when College was going to begin again. This time, I wouldn't run away, there was too much too lose in San Francisco. I wanted to stay here. I had a life build in this city and it didn't matter if James was not a part of it. I still had friends, college, my job, my house. Well, our house... we had to decide what to do with it because we had bought it together. I was not running away but I didn't want to be in town on the day scheduled to our wedding.

Claire was very discreet. She just took note of my instructions and what I wanted to do and didn't make many questions. She reduced her curiosity to a simple "Is everything alright?", to which I said I was fine. Obviously, it didn't take a Sherlock to find out something was not alright since I was asking her to be as far as I could on the day I was supposed to get married. I also called my parents. They had to be the first to know. I didn't give them many details. I didn't tell them he slept with other women. I simply said his addiction was out of control and that we both decided it was the best thing to do.

My parents were amazing as usual. My mother wanted to fly to the city to be with me, but I rested her saying despite all, I was fine. To my surprise, I really was. The initial shock was big, as the ideas were settling down, I could see that somehow I saw this coming. Besides, I was tired, just tired of fighting alone. Tired of being alone. When I gave it a better thought, it had been quite some time that I was in a relationship alone. James was in another world, not in our world.