Just Him ❤

92. Getting away.

She had their attention.
"I....." Chloe leaned forward on the table, she looked back at Seb, she could see in his eyes that he was silently pleading with her not to do this. She shut her eyes as anger and bitterness swirled in her stomach once more, he deserved this, he deserved to feel exactly how much pain he'd inflicted on her. Opening them again, her gaze settled on her mum and her dad who was now looking worried too.

"Chloe, are you ok love?" David rose slowly from his seat, he could see that something was making her distressed- or someone, going by the panicked expression on Seb's face.

"Sit down dad." She muttered quietly as she looked around again, everyone was watching her and waiting. Looking at the nearby table where Melanie, Stefanie and Fabian sat with Heike and Norbert, their smiles were fading as they looked back at her. They didn't deserve this, they didn't deserve to have all the effort that had gone into the day thrown back in their faces. Her gaze returned to the man she loved: Seb, only a moment ago he was declaring his love for her in front of everyone and saying how he couldn't wait to call her his wife. If he'd said that a week ago, she would have gladly married him there and then. His mother could have arranged the wedding here in the garden and she'd have willingly gone along with it, but now those words were just an impossible dream, one that she knew he was going to hold onto until there was no longer any hope. Her anger dissolved, she couldn't do it. Just because herself and Seb were suffering, it didn't meant that everyone else had to as well. She straightened her posture and heard Seb's breath hitch in his throat. "I...I'm sorry." She took a deep breath. "I don't do speeches." She began. "But I just wanted to say thank you to you all for being here and thank you to Seb's family for organising today. Thanks." She sat down and heard him let out a groan of relief as he leant his forehead on her shoulder.

"Thank you." He mumbled quietly.

"Don't thank me, I did it for them, not you." She glanced at her concerned parents, forcing a smile as she spoke. "And it makes me feel like shit."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The day had mercifully come to an end. Seb drove the car with another tense, awkward silence between them, she'd not uttered one word to him since her very short speech. He wanted to talk to her, to tell her how grateful he was that she hadn't blown their awful secret to everyone there, he wanted to apologise to her again for what he'd done and for what he'd forced her to go through today when all she'd wanted to do was run but he knew that nothing he said would make any difference. She was still hurting and still feeling angry, she needed time, and plenty of it. From the corner of his eye he could see her shift in her seat, her arms were folded across her chest and she let out a huff of air, but he'd just caught her looking at him and every time he did, it gave him a tiny flicker of hope. Heading down the long the drive he pulled up outside their house, it would always be their house to him and not 'the' house as Chloe now referred to it by.
"What a day." He switched off the engine and looked at her, she said nothing back and kept looking the other way. "Liebe...."

"Do not call me that!" She snapped. "You lost the right to call me that the second you decided to fuck her." Silence descended between them again and they sat there for a moment while she looked up at the house. It was now just a house to her, it most definitely did not feel like a home.

"I'm sorry." He said after sitting there for a couple of minutes.

"I know Seb."

"For everything, for what I did that night, for all the pain I've put you through and for what I've made you go through today." He reached over and put his hand over hers.

"I know." She repeated in a whisper as she watched a silver Jaguar XF park up close by.

"Looks like your car is here." He sighed as he saw Henri get out of the car. Henri had driven the four hour journey from Switzerland as Seb didn't trust anyone else to take Chloe to the airport.