Forever His Princess

-twenty nine-

AMARI ROUSSEAU

I walked down the stairs tiredly and was met by Antoine at the bottom. "Hey, you're back, are you ok?"

"I've been better."

"Manny said he's ready to go, he got ready all by himself and everything. Where are you guys going?" My expression dropped and Ant look at me with a concerned look.

Shit, we were supposed to be going to Nikolai's today.

"Ant, I broke up with Nikolai last night." I whispered. His jaw dropped and he looked back at Manny, who was sitting on the couch in the main room, swinging his legs excitedly.

"Does he think you're going there now?" I nodded, pinching the bridge of my nose. Manny looked over to me and quickly ran to pick up his backpack.

"Can we go now?"

"Baby, come and sit down, I need to speak to you." Ant sat on the couch opposite us, next to Papa. "We're not going to Nikolai's house today."

"Why not, does he have to go to work?"

"No-"

"So why can't I go and see Dad today?"

"Dad?" Ant and Papa question at the same time. I smiled weakly at them before turning back to Manny.

"Something happened and we broke up."

"But he told me he loved you and that he was going to marry you one day." I felt my eyes begin to sting and I looked down into my lap.

"It just didn't work out, baby. I'm sorry." I said, my voice coming out a lot shakier than I wanted it to.

"Can Papi take me to go and see him?"

"No, Manny. You won't be going over there again."

"That's not fair, Ma."

"I'm not going to argue with you about this, you're not going."

"Why won't you let me see my dad?" He yelled, his cheeks going red.

"Hey, I know you're upset and I'm really, really sorry, Manny. Hey, how about we go to the park instead, we can get ice cream too."

"I don't want ice cream, I want Dad." He turned down ice cream, he's never done that before.

"Baby-" He threw his iPad on the floor and started to take his shoes off.

"Don't throw it, you'll end up breaking it."

"I don't care!" He shouted back before running up the stairs to his bedroom. I sighed heavily, went to put on my coat and grabbed my keys from the small table by the door.

"Where are you going?" Ant asked cautiously.

"Buy some food, I didn't get to do it yesterday."

"I'll go with you." Papa said.

"No, stay here with Ant and Manny. I'll be back in a bit."

"I can't leave you by yourself after what happened yesterday. We'll all go with you."

"I just really wanna be on my own right now."

"Mar-"

"I'll be fine, Papa." I smiled weakly at him before going to my car.

—

I parked outside the store and I dropped my head onto the steering wheel, letting out a quiet sob. I felt my heart break every time I thought about him. I took out my phone and started playing all the voice messages he had left me, mostly from last night but some from this morning.