Endless Bonds {BTY #2} ✔

EB 4: Where She Doesn't Forgive Herself

Endless Bonds Copyright © 2016 xXMopelXx All Rights Reserved.

Chapter Posted - November 1, 2016

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C H E R 

:: Chapter (04) :: Where she doesn't forgive herself  

"So what's Paris like?" Oliver grunts, as he hauls boxes up the staircase.

My hip presses down on the lever so I can keep the building door open as he unloads my stuff from his car. My own hands are occupied with my suitcases.

"I'll tell you all about it when we're settled down."

"Jesus Christ, Cher," he intones when we reach the top of the staircase. "What's in here – God himself?"

I chuckle and open my new dorm room with the spare key we collected at the front desk. From what I last heard, my roommate is an eighteen-year-old college freshmen named Sara Lemming, studying business administration. She left me a note saying she's already settled in, and the empty side of the room belongs to me. I would have loved to stay with Tara but she's currently residing with her sorority sisters, and has no idea that I'm back in town.

Once everything is inside, Oliver helps me unpack my necessities as promised. Classes start in a week and I want to be fully-prepared by that time.

"Paris is amazing," I blurt out, after awhile of quiet working.

Oliver regards me with a grin from his perched position on my floor. He wields the knife in his hand as he lays sprawled on my floor, cutting open boxes. "Tell me more."

I continue placing my shirts and blouses in my new drawers. "Well, the weather is beautiful, the food is even better and the people... Oliver, they're incredible. Paris is incredible."

He hums in his throat and the sound of metal slicing through cardboard resounds in the air. "Even better than the people over here?"

Something about his question sounds like a little a test – like a little jab. A smile dances over my lips and I shake my head. "No. You know nothing beats here. Here is home. Nothing can compare to home."

I hear him shift and the floorboards creak. There's a softer quality to his voice as he whispers, "What else?"

I glance over my shoulder and tense briefly. Sitting there, with his inky black hair array, his clothing disheveled from the long ride to campus, a fierce intensity burning in his golden eyes from the genuine interest he expresses... All of those things cause a knot to form in my throat.

It's silly, but being here still feels surreal. Seeing one of my best friends after an absence of nearly two years has my eyes prickling all over again.

"What do you want to know?" I ask, smiling despite myself. I try hard to control my emotions. "It was simply wonderful. I fell in love with their literature, their culture, their music, with their patisseries and..." I fell in love with a boy who's now my fiancé.

"And?" he prompts, a teasing gleam returning to his eyes. He waves the knife around like a wand. "Did you find yourself a nice guy whose ass I'm going to have to kick?"

I burst out laughing, a real, started-in-your-belly kind of laugh. I throw one of my skirts at him.

"No," I lie. On instinct, I shift my left hand to the side so he can't spot the tiny gem on my ring finger. "No one for you to kick ass, Oli."

"Good." He looks like the perfect picture of a proud father as he nods curtly. In another parallel universe, I could imagine Oliver, standing behind a desk, polishing his shot gun as he questioned his – in this case, myself – daughter's boyfriend.