Falling in Love Again: A Valentine's Day Proposal

I know her as well. I don’t know how I know it, but I just do. There’s a stirring inside of me. I recognize her face and I really want to work out why. I have to literally drag myself away before I stare at her until I figure it out. In a way, it’s lucky that she’s so wrapped up in him to notice me.

Of course, in another way, it isn’t a good thing because why the hell would he ever look at me after that?

I run back to my office and I instantly grab my cell phone. I click on to the Internet and I search ‘Carter Lace and Anna’ to find out who she is. It seems to me from that conversation it’s someone that he was once with. I just wonder if it’s publicly enough for me to find anything out. There are business events and reporting that they may have been together, I might be lucky enough to stumble across something.

Not that seeing anything of him with her would be lucky in my mind.

“Oh my God.” My heart stops dead as I find a picture. A picture of the two of them together. I found it easily, I didn’t even need to search hard. I could have done this before hand. “Anna Lace.”

She is his wife, or was his wife, I’m not too sure. He took her up the aisle and said his vows to her at some point in his life anyway. They were in love enough for it to matter which is hard enough. I mean, if he had her, then why would he want me? I don’t get it. Not at all. I can barely breathe under the pressure of it all. My chest feels tight, my lungs ache, my heart hurts. I can’t stop looking at the picture of them together, looking happy, appearing like they belong together. Not like him and I would.

No wonder he’s kept me in here, in secret. I would be a complete embarrassment to him. Pictures of us together would insight all kinds of unkind Internet comments. No one would be able to understand it. Least of all me.

I need to get out of here, I need to leave before they see me. I cannot have the humiliation of them watching me as I skulk off alone. The embarrassment would absolutely kill me.

19

Carter

“Anna, we aren’t here for that. We’re here to talk about…”

I wish she’d just get the hint. She’s driving me mad here. It’s taken all damn day, far too long for my liking, and we still aren’t much further on. She’s playing games, I can see it. Switching characters all the time to what she thinks I want to see and it’s driving me mad. I had a whole marriage with that, I don’t want more.

I throw my hands in the air as my brain desperately tries to find the next words.

“Anna, I just want to talk about what’s going on. Will you please explain it to me?”

She rolls her eyes. “You just want to hear about my misery again. You probably like it.”

“Come on, Anna. You know me. I’m not like that at all. I just want to get my head around it.”

She pouts out her bottom lip and wanders around my office like she belongs here. The funny thing is, when I actually would have invited her in, she didn’t want to know. She was too busy screwing my friend.

“Okay fine. Well, things haven’t been too good for Daniel and I.” I feel nothing as she says this. Again. There should be pain or annoyance, maybe some grim satisfaction. “He got us into a lot of trouble. Gambling took hold of him, he has an addictive personality, you see.” I have to resist rolling my eyes at that remark. “So, he couldn’t help it. That damn casino wouldn’t ban him however many times I asked them to.”

“Right, so he gambled all of your money.” My money, the cash she was given in the divorce, but I suppose that’s neither here nor there. “And now he’s in some kind of trouble?”

“He’s left me.” The tears start rolling again. What a shame she couldn’t cry like that over me. “He ran away, that’s what’s happened. He’s acting like a coward and leaving me to face it all.”

A small part of me wants to ask her if she likes getting a taste of her own medicine, being betrayed like that. But I don’t. I can’t be bothered, I’m not even that interested in the answer.

“He’s left me but the men still want the money that he owes. So, of course, they’re coming to me.”

“Have you not just told them that he’s gone?”

She rolls her eyes as if I don’t get it. Which I don’t. Why be so stupid? “Of course, but they don’t believe it.”

“So, go to the police. That’s what they are there for. To stop stuff like this from getting out of control.”

“I can’t go to the cops. This is all illegal. Do you know what will happen if I turn them in?”

I cock my head to one side and examine her closely. I don’t know if I one hundred percent believe this. I mean, she has shown that she can lie before, over and over again, so why wouldn’t that be the case now? She fleeced me for my money once before. That could just be happening again. I wouldn’t put anything passed her. Maybe she and Daniel have just spent all of the money and this is the best that she could come up with. The Daniel that I knew wasn’t this person she’s describing. Then again, I didn’t think that he would betray me, so I guess I didn’t really know him at all. He could be a gambling addict who runs away at the first sign of trouble.

“Okay, so what are the solutions then? I presume you must have thought of something.”

She looks at me coyly, questions passing over her lips. She wants something from me, of course she does. That’s why she’s here. That’s why she has spent all day here trying to be nice. That’s why she’s still here now. I think I might know what she wants from me as well, I just want to hear her say it aloud.

“I just need to pay these guys off, Carter, that’s all. I need to get them off my back.”