Untimely Love (Book 3)

♤Chapter 7♤

♤ARIANA♤

The selfish route some people take in certain hard situations is to blame desperation. I guess it could be some kind of survival instinct to make themselves feel better about what they're doing or what they did.

  Me for example; I was desperate to go to college—to get into a university that's most likely to accept me with at least some experience and knowledge about what I wanted to study.

  Interior design specifically wasn't something I could wing when it came to patterns, colors, layouts, and the most important: presenting them in a portfolio review. It's something I needed to know and one semester of art class in my senior year of high school wouldn't cut it. So I clung to Charlotte. Chris's mother.

  These past few months, I'd gotten even more desperate, almost greedy, with my need to get into college. Sometimes that greed consumed my guilt—the nasty feeling that settled in the pit of my stomach the multiple times I step foot in Charlotte's house for my mentorship.

  The number of times it crossed my mind to tell her what happened—what's happening—between me and Chris got strangled by that desperation. The need to not only push myself to get to where I wanted to be in a year, but occupied my mind and gave me something else to think about other than the constant loneliness.

  But it's different struggling with all these thoughts on my own and seeing the object of those thoughts standing in the same room—both of us painfully aware of the other and the fact that one of us shouldn't be here. And that person was me.

  Just by the way he stood and kept his eyes away from me told me he didn't want me here and it was understandable.

  All I could think was that I should leave. If I'd known he was coming I wouldn't have been here in the first place—just like last time. I had a hard time asking Charlotte for help in general, and the last thing he needed was coming home and seeing me in his house. In his clothes.

  I pulled the sleeves of the huge sweater down to cover my fingers and hugged myself as tight as I could. If I had enough clothes under it I would've taken it off. I knew he gave it to me months ago—technically, it's mine—but I didn't have any right wearing it. Especially not here. Especially not after what happened.

  Something in my stomach twisted and turned and the feeling shot right to my head and hit me with a sudden nausea that I had to close my eyes and breathe deeply.

  "You didn't tell me you were coming," Charlotte said. Her voice was low but almost giddy and it took too much not to look up—to look at him.

  "Last minute decision," Chris replied, his voice gruff, strained almost. "Sean wanted to see Carlos and such."

  I bit my lip hard enough to bleed. This made my skin crawl, and I would leave—I'd give them privacy if they weren't blocking the only entrance and exit.

  I switched my weight from one foot to the next and tightened my arms around my torso when my nerves started getting the best of me. My legs trembled but the worst part was hearing my name and looking up and meeting his gaze.

  Charlotte had pointed out that I was here as if he couldn't see me already—like he hadn't been trying not to. Over the past few weeks, she subtly tried to pry answers out of me about what happened between us. She used to be strict about how close we were but it was more than obvious that she didn't like our distance either. Maybe because the tension made everyone else uncomfortable.

  I opened my mouth, not knowing what I was going to say, but he looked away before I could even breathe. Chris let out a low hum that showed he wasn't interested.