The baby swap✓

Chapter 32: Time apart

Zoe's POV

 
I didn't sleep a wink last night. All the last events just kept coming back to me.

I could still recall the rest of the conversion JoJo and I had.

"He is a sweet boy you know, underneath all of that. All his control issues are just a way of him coping." She added.

I remained silent.

"He didn't even have the change to mourn his parents, he was throw into the corporate world without any experience. He never got his father's guidance. When you that young a lot of people will try and take advantage of you."  She continued.

I didn't know what to say.

For the first time I felt like I finally understood him.
I felt that someone should have done something to protect him, at least help him. Perhaps his past is the reason for the person he is today.

JoJo sat quietly, waiting for me to say something, but I couldn't. It just made me feel worse about all the bad things I had said about him.

She left my room shortly after once she had realized that I wasn't going to speak.

I now felt worse than I had about having an argument with him. Maybe I was partly to blame for that too. I know I said tings that I shouldn't have.

The past really does make the people we are, maybe that was the reason he was so controlling and needed to make sure that things went the 'right' way.
Or maybe I was just giving him more reasons to continue treating me badly. All I knew was that this was a mess, and I needed to get out of it.

Noah was right, Alex and I were just too different. Or maybe we were one in the same, so alike we couldn't get along. We are like a ticking time bomb. We are bound to destroy one another.

The truth is Alexander never stood a chance, from the moment I first met him I hated him. I was adamant to never trust him. It is no wonder that any form of relationship wouldn't work between us.

Even though I wasn't ready to accept it, the best thing for me to do is leave. The closer we are to each other, the worse our relationship became. We both had issues from our past that we needed to deal with first before we were in any condition to co-parent together.
I can't change either of our past, and unfortunately it had made us into the dysfunctional people we are today.

Right now I just wanted to stop thinking, I didn't want to have to think about all of these things. But I knew I was going to have to make a decision.


~.~


I spent the whole evening revisiting my decision to leave. Everyway I tried to look at it, there was no way that this was going to end happily. We both needed to grow up first.

Although I wasn't entirely sure about my decision to leave, I was convinced of one thing. All rich people have daddy or mommy issues.

After I had my breakfast, I asked one of the maids to help me pack my things. Today everything felt silent. I could feel the tension all over the house. I could tell everyone was tip-toeing around me.

I didn't see Alexander, I think he was trying to avoid me. I only heard sounds coming from his office.
I had been trying to delay having a conversation with him, but it was what we needed to do.

I slowly walked to his door. I didn't want to live like this, like I was in war.

I knocked on his door.

I heard his foot steps approaching.  He then opened the door.

He looked distorted. I noticed the bags under his eyes and the extra messy hair. He looked like he hadn't slept a wink. As if I wasn't already feeling bad enough, I now felt worse.

He opened the door wider and gestured for me to come in.

Here I go, it was too late for me to turn back now.

I took a sit, I needed to sit for the conversion we were about to have. He sat in his chair opposite me.
With the amount of tension in this room, I would have felt more calm had I been sitting for a job interview.

"I heard you were leaving," He said breaking the silence.

After last night, I didn't know what to expect. Maybe he was going back to his old self and start threatening me.

"You don't have to." He said instead.

I sighed. I didn't know why I felt so nervous, not to long ago I felt extremely brave.

"I think that is what is best for us, we can't even get along. We both clearly have some issues from our past, things that we have to deal with on our own before we can be in a room together without biting each others heads off." I blubbered.

After a long dramatic pause he finally spoke, "You are right,"

I stayed silent as I soaked in what he had just said.

Was he actually agreeing with me? I was expecting a long talk about how 'unsafe' it is for me to return to my house followed by threats to try and keep me here. But I wasn't expecting him to act this calm. Maybe he was really sick of me.

"I know I don't make things easier for you sometimes but I think we need to start by talking to one another, properly. Maybe be more open, that way we can be able to address the problem together." I said.

He silently stood from his sit. He was acting really strange, this was not how I had expected him to react. Was he about to take a gun and kill me, no one would know.  I couldn't trust his silence.

Instead, he took out a photography inside a book.

"It's the last picture I have of my family," He said. "Everything else was packed away. They said it was to help me forget," He said.

He handed the picture to me.

In the picture was a Alexander who looked to be about five years old at the time. His father was holding him in his arms while his mother stood at their side. It was a sunny day in what looked like a garden, I could see the greenery in the background.
I recognized his mother, she was the same person I saw on the portrait when I first arrived. Just by looking at her eyes, I could tell she was kind and friendly.

"My mother's name was Claire. She had the most beautiful smile, sometimes when I forget how she smiled I look at that picture." He spoke. He didn't look hurt, I could tell this was a beautiful memory for him.

I was shocked that he was willing to tell me something this person, I hadn't really given him any reason to.

For once without interrupting him, I listened.

"We were really happy, my parents were the most amazing, wonderful and caring people." He said. "They didn't deserve to die. All I've ever learnt is that caring hurts."

"But it makes us human," I said. I couldn't tear my eyes off the picture. It's hard to think that such a young boy who looked so carefree and happy in this picture would turn out to be the troubled person he is today.

"The day I stopped caring, the pain went along with it. Maybe this isn't the person they would have wanted me to be, trust me I think about it every day. But at least it didn't land me dead." He said.

Hearing him speak triggered me to think about all the recent events. He cared about me and I hurt him.

At this point I didn't even know what to say to him, nothing I say would be able to make him feel better. That was years worth of pain all bottled up that he was letting out. At least that was a start. I couldn't imagine going through what he did. What is the point of being good if you end up dead?
I felt like he had just shared with me a part of his soul and I didn't know how to make him feel better.

"What about you?" He said he said drawing me out of my thoughts.

I was still trying to process everything he had just told me.

"What about me?" I said asked.

"So what happened with the other guy?" He asked.

"What guy?" I asked.

"Come on, there must have been another guy." He said with a laugh.

Just like that, it was as if the last few minutes hadn't happened at all, he was back to his usual self.

I sighed.

I knew whom he was referring to, Gerald.

"Well, he repeated screwed me over and lied to me. I over looked everything because I really thought he was the right person. Every time he did something wrong, he blamed it on how his parents never loved him. He said he had some issues and that he didn't know how to love other." I explained. "In the end, he left me for someone better," I relied.

'After I burnt down his house,' I wanted to say.

It used to hurt thinking about him, now I am just mad I wasted all that time.

If I ever wanted to burn down Alexander's place, I'd really have to consider a lot of things. Especially the kind of law suit he would hit me with, I'd spend the rest of my life in debt or in jail.

He stayed silent as he analyzed me.

"What are you looking at?" I asked.

"He left you for someone better?" He asked.

"Yap," I relied. He just had to make sure so he could rub it in my face.

"I doubt that such a person exists," He relied. "I couldn't imagine anyone more perfect."

I turned away from him as my cheeks blushed. I hated it when he was nice to me, I liked having a reason to hate him.

"So have you really decided to leave?" He asked.

"I think that would be what is best for us," I answered after a brief pause.  "I think we both need to deal with some issues first."

He nodded.

Today was a great break through, but it wasn't going to be enough. We still had somethings to deal with.

I was surprised he was being very understanding.

"I think some space would be good for us too, I need to get over you." He said.

My eyes widened for a moment. What did he mean? Was staying with me that bad that he needed time to get over it. I didn't realize that I had been that bad of a housemate.

"But just know that if you need anything, I will be there for you. I know I promised this before but this time I'm really going to go through with it, I'll give you the space that you need to live your life. I won't interfere anymore." He said.

I could tell that he sounded sincere but I couldn't really trust his words until he proved it by his actions.

I nodded instead. I didn't want to start another argument about how I didn't trust him, I wanted to leave today on a positive note.

"You always have a place here." He said.

I felt like we were leaving things on a good note, maybe this could be the fresh start that our relationship desperately needed.

Saying good bye to everything was a lot harder than I had initially expected.

I wasn't only saying goodbye to Alex or the people who lived here, but to life of having someone that can make you anything you want to eat and does all the house chores and also offer services like those you would find in a five-star hotel.

Maybe deep down the reason I was leaving was because I was letting my pride get in the way.

It took nearly five hours to get my things ready. Alex had his driver drive me back home safely.
And I knew that maybe, I had made a big mistake.