𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑺𝑨𝑽𝑬𝑫 𝑴𝑬 // mileven

forty-five

8 YEAR TIME JUMP

"he's still beautiful in my eyes, but not as beautiful as someone else."

✧ ﾟ･:*✧ ﾟ:*ﾟ　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

8 YEAR TIME JUMP

EL'S POV

"i have to get to work." i mumble against my fiancé's mouth, my voice turning into a moan once his fingers dig into my thighs, traveling dangerously high. a gasp drifts past my lips when his fingers travel around my hips, now clutching my ass.

"no, you don't." he replies, moving his mouth from mine and stroking it down the length of my neck, leaving hot kisses in his path.

my eyes open, an uncertain flicker in them as i swallow back a moan. the man in front of me doesn't notice my hesitance, his palm tracing designs on my body and his mouth devouring my skin.

it's not that i'm not having fun, of course i'm having fun. the sex is fun, the makeouts are fun. but that's all it is, just sex and makeouts, even though i want it to be so much more.

and it's not even wesley's fault.

he doesn't treat me badly, i would have left him so long ago if he treated me badly, but i just want so much more. i want what we used to have, when we were fresh out of university and naive, trying to forget the tears and betrayal of our past relationships.

i might've even been in love with wesley a year into our relationship, but then he proposed. a beautiful proposal with flowers and a lake and everything a girl could even dream of. and i said yes, caught up in the moment and afraid of hesitating with the camera and audience before us.

wesley and i had our fun, our sickly sweet romance with extreme PDA and hookups in random janitors closets, but then it all disappeared for me.

i got a call from my manager, riya, who told me that i was being looked at for a lead research position at an astrophysics firm in indiana. triple the pay that i currently had as a research assistant. so of course, i expressed interest in the position quickly and flew to indiana to scope out the prospect of upending my life for my dream job.

wesley bid me farewell with a kiss, as couples do. max ran from her dentist appointment to the airport, complaining about the flouride on her teeth, even as she gave me an organ-crushing hug.

and a knowing look.

"have fun in indiana." she sang in a playful voice, and then ran off before i could ask her why she was acting so strange.

as soon as i stepped out of the indianapolis international airport, i realized. everything here reminded me of him, even when i was nowhere close to his hometown. the air made me think of him, the way people dressed made me think of him, the way people talked made me think of him.

mike.

and then i couldn't stop thinking about him. my ex, my past, the person who used to be my everything before we went through a brutal breakup the spring of senior year. i wanted to pursue my future, go to a top tier east coast university. mike wanted to go to school in texas, where he was already applying to rice university for business. i wanted long distance so we could both excel, he wanted short distance so we didn't have to excel separately.