This One Hurts 😭💕 - Blog Posts

Part 6!

Everything is falling apart.

First of all, I'm sorry. Second - we're only one part away from the beginning of comfort and I'm slowly going crazy here haha

Part 1

2007

Source: Flickr/Adam Field

I Am Truly Happy

Friend infected me with a line and now I have some wedding angst for my angst queen @chipsmilksworld Happy Birthday girl!! I hope you like the angst I cooked for you <3 Words: 1.2k Relationship: MC/Caleb | Xia Yizhou Tags: POV!Caleb, 3rd Person, angst/pain, this one ain't happy, the reader knows its not, actually beta read, my beta hates me

Dividers: @/omi.resources

Caleb sat alone in the suite. Gideon had left some time ago, being called down to take care of something or the other. Caleb didn't really care either way. He toyed with his bow—feeling choked by it—and finally tore the knot open, letting it hang down and not bothering to redo it.

He leaned forward, elbows resting on his jumpy knees. He still felt like he couldn't properly breathe—even when he'd sighed for the umpteenth time—like the air didn't want to enter his lungs properly. He was mussing his hair, close to just pulling it from its roots when a knock resounded from his door and his head jerked up. Who would it be? He gulped, even when his dry mouth didn't offer anything to, and called.

His chest expanded when she entered and the air rushed his lungs only to be forcefully halted once he realised this was not the way a groom-to-be should smile at his Best Man. They'd joked about it just like they had when he had been her Maid of Honour; choosing to stick with the terms. She clicked the door shut behind her and beamed at him as she scuttled over in her suit dress. She looked a vision in the bold blazer which accentuated her waist and showed off her legs. He had to avert his gaze or he'd keep outright staring at her.

Remembering himself, he stood and slipped on the mask he'd worn for years. Today though, it was much harder putting it on, much more so to keep it in place—just like that day half a year ago. He smiled, his muscles twitching against the antithetical display of emotion, and faced her. By instinct he took her hands into his still so much bigger ones, forever dwarfing them, as children as well as adults. He couldn't help his eyes zeroing in on her rings and absentmindedly brushing over them. 

That day was still fresh in his mind; when she'd shoved her hand into his face, a thin diamond set band on her ring finger. He remembered her rambling on, but not what she'd said, as he usually would have. The moment he'd seen it, he hadn’t needed any more explanation for its meaning. His mind had all but drawn a blank. Just staring at her finger that boasted a ring that was not—

"You're not even listening to me!" she'd said, crossing her arms and taking the ring out of his field of vision.

He'd had a hard time following her recounting how the happy moment had come about. He'd tried, but he couldn't stop himself fast enough before the question of whether marrying someone she'd been with for half a year was such a good idea slipped out. Ironic really, seeing as he was now in the same situation.

"You always say you want me to be happy," she'd replied "I—I am happy. Really I am." She had smiled and if Caleb hadn't known any better he would have called it forced. But he'd known it wasn’t what she would have wanted to hear. She didn't want to be questioned in her choices again. He'd promised to trust her. Her word. Her choices. Her abilities.

"Are you happy for me, Caleb?"

His head had snapped up and he mirrored her expression, "Of course," he had to clear his throat when it came out all but broken—not at all how he had intended it to sound like and knew she had needed it to sound like. 

"Of course." He'd repeated, "I'm happy for you if you are happy." That was the truth. Above anything else, Caleb had always wished for her happiness, even if that happiness didn't include him. At least not in the way he…

"Spacing out again?" she said, leaning forward to look him in the eye—blocking his view from the thin silver band that had since been joined by a simple, slightly thicker one with an equally simple diamond set into it. 

"Yeah," he laughed hoarsely trying to get his bearings. It should have been any stone but a diamond. And certainly nothing simple about it. It should have represented her playfulness, her mischievousness, her sweetness and her liveliness. It should have been so much more than what it was. It should have been h—He sighed and shook the thought from his mind. It didn't do any of them well to follow them to completion. He smiled his crooked smile he knew she adored and was blessed with her laughter filling the tomblike suite.

"What would you do without me," she teased and reached up to fix his mussed hair. 

"Die" he'd almost spontaneously said and bit his tongue not to.

"Nervous?" she asked softly. He huffed, he knew what she was doing. Six months ago it had been him, kneeling before her as she had sat in her wedding dress—worrying the lace—in a suite not dissimilar to the one they were in now. 

He’d taken her hands into his. "Nervous?" he’d asked her and looked up at her. 

"What if I say I am?" she'd asked him and he'd almost replied, "Then run away with me." 

He would have told her she'd never have to be nervous about anything with him, not ever again at least. Not since they'd left it all behind and closed the chapter that spelled their past, and opened the one that was supposed to be their future. Their future. Together. 

Instead, he'd told her it was normal to feel that way. When she’d huffed a laugh and asked him how he knew, he’d laughed and said he'd read it somewhere. Which was the truth. He'd read about worries a bride-to-be might have when he'd done his research to help her plan her wedding as her Maid of Honour. 10 Things to Tell a Bride When... was the article's title. They'd laughed and she'd felt better already she'd said. He shouldn't have, but he couldn't stop himself from asking her again. 

"You're happy right?" 

She’d looked at him for a moment—nodded, and finally followed it with a quiet "yeah…"

"What if I say I am?" he echoed her words back to her now. She blinked at him, causing him to furrow his brows as it was not the reaction he expected.

 Before he could question it, she smiled broadly at him and in the best imitation of his voice—perfected over 20 years of knowing another—she replied, "That's okay. It is normal to feel that way. It's called wedding jitters." 

They burst out laughing.

He knew he couldn't stall for much longer as they grew quiet again and the air began to thicken once more. 

She sighed. "Caleeeb," rolling her eyes she began to fumble with his bowtie, weaving it back in shape. 

"You're happy right?" she stupefied him. Her fingers kept working, brushing along the skin of his throat then and again. He took a deep breath, he'd prepared himself for this moment. He knew it was coming. So he wasn't anything but firm in his reply. 

"I am truly happy." That was the first time Caleb had ever truly lied to her. Not an omission of truth or the avoidance of a fact, but a real genuine lie. 

She tugged the bow in shape, smiling up at him as she tightened the collar around his throat.

Thanks for reading! Second chapter is done too, yes there is more pain, and a third is in consideration. Why? I don't know either, I just want my boy happy yet here I am...curse my friend for infecting me with that baller 'first time he lied' line T_T Anyway I hope you enjoyed your present my angsty queen @chipsmilksworld <3 To my wonderful Beta Shadow: I know you hate me, but I love you! Even when it was your line infecting me with the angst. Thanks for sitting through my weird ass sentence constructions with me <3