14
Chloe arrived just in time for dinner. I’d prepared a delicious meal. We drank wine and sprawled on the couch.
The movie playing was a ridiculously melodramatic old romance film. Chloe suddenly asked me,
“Aria, have you really moved on?”
I looked up at her and laughed.
“Honestly, I don’t know when I let go. Maybe when Skylar first contacted me, or maybe when he proposed to Skylar. But to be truthful, I don’t miss him one bit since leaving.”
“That day Skylar sent me the video, I wasn’t even angry. In fact, I felt a wave of relief.”
“I finally had an excuse to leave him.”
I took a sip of wine as I spoke, feeling a little tipsy, and stared blankly at the ceiling.
I inexplicably thought of my first meeting with Blake.
He was humble and gentle, his smile like winter sunlight, a spring breeze.
I remember telling my father then, “This arranged marriage might actually be wonderful.”
<
Later, I never saw that Blake Sterling again. It was as if he’d been possessed by a different person.
It wasn’t until he later screamed at me, his face contorted in rage, “Aria Hayes, I hate conformity more than anything!”
Only then did I understand that the Blake Sterling I first met was just an act.
At his core, he was just a spoiled playboy, finally unleashed.
“I was actually pretty worried you’d regret it”
Chloe’s voice pulled me back. I laughed so hard I could barely breathe.
“I’d have to be insane to regret it.”
The two of us drank all night, until dawn, when Chloe stumbled home.
The alcohol hadn’t fully metabolized, I swayed my way to the backyard and lay on the rocking chair.
In a blur, I thought I saw Blake Sterling standing outside the garden wall, his eyes filled with sorrow,
It must be a hallucination. Blake had hurt me too deeply; he traumatized me so much, I must be having flashbacks.
Thinking this, I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, feeling my body suspended in air, then sinking into something soft.
15
