CHAPTER ONE : The Get Together
1025 Words
Diane's POV
My heart skipped when my eyes landed on him.
The dance hall was very bright and noisy, with people clueless of my sacrifices to be here. I held my drink tightly, watching people float like ocean tides. My dark dress felt like a protective shell. It was picked for only this reason.
A decade passed. Ten slow years I worked non stop. My hands ached from writing notes. I got only four hours of sleep. I turned down every invite to chill. Each moment built Vertex Corp from scratch while others mocked my chances. Now my firm's name filled talks at this event. Finally, I was a success. I had turned into someone.
This night wasn't for fun. It was for something way darker.
"Diane, you're glowing," a new person said, just appearing by me. I didn't know his name, nor did I care to. I flashed my practiced smile, perfected in the mirror countless times. It was nice, icy, and totally fake. He soon left, sensing I wished him gone.
That was when everything shifted.
Across the room, James Chen chatted with some guys in gray suits. My legs felt like jelly. He looked almost the same. His face was still firm, his hair dark with a hint of silver. His suit cost more than my old place. For a split second, I gasped. My chest felt like it was tied up tight.
I looked at the list five times. I knew he would show up. I planned for this moment to happen. But knowing and seeing are not the same.
James laughed at something a man said. That sound. I knew just how it felt in the dark, in his bed, back when we were young and in love. I shoved that thought away like it was toxic. I could not think of that. Not now. Never again.
He turned his head slow, like he felt my eyes. Our eyes met in the big room. For a moment, nothing moved. Then his smile dropped off. His hand stopped in the air. His whole body froze up.
He realized it.
I stared right at him. I let him see me now. Let him guess who this strong woman was and why she stared at him with such hate. I put my glass down and went to the bathroom. I walked through the crowd without looking back once. But I felt his eyes on me. I felt them burn into my back like hot flames.
I dashed to the bathroom, bolted the stall, and shut my eyes. My heart pounded way too hard. This felt off somehow. I should have felt steady. I should have felt in charge. For ten years, I dreamt of this scene, and I could not crack just because I saw him.
His face wasn't just the reason I shook though. It was all he swiped from my life. It was all those nights I wept in my small place. It was all those times I wondered if my boy would grow up hating me, for being broke, for having zero. It was that shame that almost killed my spirit.
I threw chilly water on my face and saw my own eyes. My dark eyes stared right back, firm and set on my task. This was who I now was. Not that girl James walked away from. Not that wrecked soul who thought love was a cure. I'm Diane Martinez, the CEO here. I had power. I felt tough. I had to make him hurt.
I went out of that bathroom and James stood right there by that door.
He seemed changed at close range. More worn. He had lines near his eyes not there ten years prior. But he still looked great in that mean way that had tricked me once then. I would not let it trick me one more time.
"Diane," he spoke, and his tone stayed just the same as then. Heavy and cozy and full of feels I had taught myself not to hold. "I never knew you would be here."
I stared at him with zero smile on my face at all. "There is much you are not aware of, James."
His eyeballs rolled over my face as if fixing a tricky math thing. "You seem changed. You seem... good. You seem like you're just fine." He paused there a short bit. "I know 'bout Vertex. Folks gossip 'bout you a ton. They say you are super sharp, real big deal."
I gave him no answer back. I went to move by him, but he then grabbed my arm quick. His fingers felt like sun. I jumped back like his hand burned bad.
"Hold up," he spoke. "Please. Just half a sec." He checked down the hall to see no one was near. "I must ask you one thing. That baby thing... when you spoke of our baby... was it..."
My heart popped right open. It was the moment I'd thought of many times over. It was when he'd ask about our child at last. It was when I'd pick to speak truth or let him stay sad.
I looked at his face, saw the bad thing he felt. I saw the wish. I saw the scary part. I saw the bit of him that loved me at one time. And I killed this part. I shut it off just like a door.
"That's not for you to know," I spoke very soft and low. "That part of my world has no link to you now. It won't ever have one."
James's face went quite white like all blood went away fast. "Diane, hear me out—"
I walked off at once, went back in the big hall where sounds and lights hid my whole self. I heard him shout my name loud, but I didn't stop then. I didn't turn back.
When I got back home that night, my phone made a buzz with words I didn't know. Just only four short words: "I must seek you out."
My fingers wiggled strangely, deleting stuff. Though, I kinda saved that number still.
- Writer
