Holding On

sᴇᴠᴇɴᴛᴇᴇɴ

Taking the first swallow of the cold bottle of beer in his hand, Zain Chadwick told himself that today's drawn conclusions had been his misunderstanding, that there was no way Emma Taylor could be married and much less with a child.

She'd called that little girl 'daughter' but it had to be in the sense of 'neice'. And about that ring, it'd probably been just for fashion.

He looked at his phone beside him for the sixth time and still held himself back from grabbing it and conducting a research on her. He was just so scared of what he would find.

But eventually, when the need for clarity tore through him with a vengeance, he finally picked up his phone and searched her up on Google.

Naturally, her details on Wikipedia were the leads on the results. Scrolling, Zain mouthed her name 'Emma Taylor Lancaster'.

He nearly let himself ignore the detail in his haste to scroll down and see her marriage status, but a one's over at the name and his heart started pounding erratically.

Lancaster.

Even though he had it staring him in the face, he told himself a name was something too basic to determine the status and scrolled further.

If she wasn't married, then there would be no 'spouse' in the information, and he hoped for the life of him he wouldn't find it. He moved to the other details.

Age: 30
Occupation: Fashion designer, Model
Spouse: George Lancaster
Children: 1

For a moment, the mere shock of the last two details made it seem like he was just streaming through until it seriously dawned on him and he froze.

A jag of pain tore through his heart as the reality finally sunk in, dissipating the denial into cold dread. He told himself he was imagining everything, yet when he blinked, the facts still stared him in the face like his greatest nightmare.

He went back to the search box and typed 'Emma Taylor wedding'. When the results came, there wasn't much to find. Just results about a line of clothes she'd made for people planning to marry three years ago.

No doubt she'd wanted something private and personal and secretive, he thought bitterly.

Every second that passed after that were needles pricking into his already bruised heart, and the emotions finally tore through him in a fierce rage.

Jolting up his feet, he hurled his phone violently, and the innocent device hit and crashed against the wall.

He screamed, spinning around, feeling angry and hurt and betrayed, and it hurt even more because he knew he had no right to feel betrayed.

After all, wasn't he the one who had told her to move on with her life? Hadn't he told her to not hold on to the past? Why did this hurt so much then?

Screaming, he began throwing and crashing everything his quivering hands laid on. Flower vases shattered and the sand spilled, tables and couches tumbled, glasses smashed.

The room became a mess of pain and heartache. Amid the outburst, the bell kept on ringing as a voice screamed his name repeatedly, but in the world of insanity, it was a drone in the distance.

How could she have moved on so quickly? Did she even ever think of him in all these years that'd passed?

The drone kept getting clearer and nearer. "Goodness, what the hell is happening here?"

Zain continued to hurl whichever object fell victim to his anger.

"Zain, what are you doing?"

Reaching for the flat panel television firmly secured to the wall, he was just about to use all his strength to break the cements when a stinging slap pulled him from his trance and sent him hurtling back into reality.