Blank Slate

Chapter 18: Life and Lemons

Chapter 18:

Katelyn Bishop

With the loss of Flint, Katelyn's heart crashed to the ground floor of her stomach. Pitting inside her bones, she felt helpless and broken. Katelyn quickly closed the space between her and Lewis. Her ruby nails landed softly on his cotton collar. Her blue eyes chased up to his brown eyes.

Katelyn lifted her head up towards him to kiss him, but then she felt a hand on her chest.

Looking down, she saw Lewis's hands shakily trying to push her away from him.

Confusion lit in her sapphire eyes. Looking back up at Lewis, his lips began to stutter a feeble explanation.

Lewis's brown eyes screamed a merciful final blow to her shattering to her heart.

“Look, Kate, I think that I was still a little raw and vulnerable after this morning. I think we both know that we don’t mean anything to each other. You just pitied me…and…and that  just happened.”

His lips drew a fearful frown. Lewis tucked her a strand of her black hair behind her ear, trying to let her down easy.

He paused trying to make her not feel bad. But damn didn't that make her feel worse.

He continued. “We're no good together." He began to count on his fingers all the reasons they weren't good together. “We fight. You know. A lot. You like basketball and I like football. You eat spicy foods for lunch and I can't stand that stuff. We work together. You like books.” 

Oh God, this could not get more embarrassing.

Continuing his barrage of let-downs, he began to hollow her out like he was the ice-cream scoop and she was the unlucky pint he'd chosen.

“Furthermore…” What is this an essay of reasons they shouldn't be together? “ We're just too different. I just don't think we'd work out.”

Alright put a hold on the dowry and marriage, this man was crazy.

They just had one kiss…okay…maybe more than one, but she wasn't going to settle down with him.

Still, it hurt.

A stabbing pain lodged in her chest as Lewis offered consolation by splaying his hands over her arms.

Katelyn's brows furrowed angrily at this attempt to sate her.

Concern steeped in his tapered brows and murky, brown eyes.

Katelyn just couldn't fathom it all. In one short half hour she'd lost the Flint; the only man she ever really cared about, and, then Lewis.

God. This was terrible. Agony bubbled in her chest as a tear involuntarily slid down her cheek. Katelyn ran out of that copy room.

Her head chased her down the rabbit hole. She tried to avoid the eyes of her coworkers.

It was all so anticlimactic.

All this time she had been trying to get people to notice her, but now she wished she still had her anonymity to fall back on.

Tears blurred her eyes as her cheeks flamed a tomato soup redness.

Katelyn headed to the bathroom to try to escape the looks of her coworkers. All their faces quipped at her. Silently she could hear their thoughts. “Why is she crying? Is that the girl who gave it to Carter? Seems she can't take it back, I hear." Her mind painted a sea of mockery and laughter around her.

Katelyn's heels tapped faster along the patterned tile. Her ruby red nails and messed up lip stick raged as silent battle wounds in the war of life.