The Magnolia Café

Chapter 40

Christmas is getting closer day by day and I can't help but to remember the day Peter proposed to me about a year ago.

"Bella..." He pulled me closer. "Did you gain wait?" Peter asked as he touched my hair and my naked shoulders, moving lower to my back underneath the covers.

"No. I don't think so. Why?"

"You should probably stay away from brunch with Sonya for a while, don't you think?" He asked with a grin as he pinched the non-existent fat on my love handles.

"Jerk." I faked a silly smile. But his comment stuck with me. I started a diet the next day, as If I wasn't already underweight at that point. No more brunch after this.

"Weren't we going to open our Christmas presents?"

"We were, right?"

"I'll get your present." Peter came back to the room with a small round fishbowl in his hands.

"Don't tell me you found a way to hide the plane tickets inside that thing?"

He had bought plane tickets. We were supposed to travel to some place warmer to spend New Year's Eve. The plan was to go scuba diving in a paradisiacal deserted island, in a five start resort and one of those balconies that opens directly to the beach, with blue transparent water and baby turtles and all that.

"Look inside the treasure chest." I placed my hand inside the water and took out the box. A ring.

How silly of me. I thought that was so sweet. How blind I was... The trip eventually got cancelled because of a problem at work. Something went wrong with the construction of a new building and Peter was called back to work on the site while I enjoyed the rest of our holidays alone at home.

I didn't talk much with Nicholas at that time, and I didn't want to go back home to spend the holidays with my parents so, being locked up inside the walls of the apartment sounded like a better plan.

I was lonely and didn't do much in those days. I laid around pretending to be reading a book, when in truth I was just blankly staring at the pages. When Peter arrived, usually I was already a sleep. I would wake up in the strangest hours of the night on the couch, with the book open beside me, and would realize that he was already at home, asleep on the bed.

My days off came to an end and after New Year's Eve, I also went back to work and saw Peter even less than I did before. Even though we lived in the same house, we stopped living together. What happened?

"Good night. How was work?" As he walked in, I asked. I was in the kitchen making some tea. He chugged a glass of water before even looking at me. "I barely see you nowadays."

"I'm sorry," he spited sarcastically. "I'm sorry if I have actual work to do and not lounge around the office all day and going out to lunch for two hours with my colleagues."

"Excuse me?" I frowned.

"Come on, Bella. You can't possibly think you do something that important all day, do you? You just do miserable insignificant tasks out of favour because they can't fire you."

"Being angry with work doesn't give you the right to lash out at me."

"Am not angry at work. I'm angry at you, always hovering around, always asking why I'm late—"

"I'm not doing that. We're drifting apart and I'm sorry if I just want to talk with my fiancé." He let out a sardonic laugh.

"Fuck you, Bella." He grabbed the glass threw it at the wall. Tiny fragment scattered everywhere. I felt myself shrunk and tears started falling down my face.

"For what? For caring about you?"

"For being a whiny bitch. Always complaining. Why are you complaining? You just have this little perfect life. Little perfect Isabella, always making everyone feel insignificant and inferior."

He was the one with an inferiority complex, but he tried to pin on me.

"That's not true, and you know it." I said, sobbing.

"And there you go again, always crying. Why do you cry at the slightest thing? Whiny bitch, just like I said." He stepped on the broken glass and started walking away towards the door. "Just keep doing what you are best at. Standing there, looking pretty and with your mouth shut. That's what you're good for."

He slammed the door, and I was left alone, crying, shaking, and cleaning shattered glass from the kitchen floor.

We started talking less and less after this. There would be days when he would get home in a good mood, he would hug me and kiss me, and I would think that everything was going to get better. But then morning came, and I would wake up and he was gone. He had already left for work. I would leave work and he would stay in his office late into the night. We became strangers. A couple of months after that, he left.