Chapter 5

                                    

                                          
Once we had arrived at the park, Simon told me he wanted to go to the nearby album store to look through the albums. I let him go as I people watched and kept an eye on Angelo as he ran around the playground with another little boy he had just met. I kind of miss the simpler times when making a friend was as easy as telling them your name and asking if you wanted to be friends. It wasn't that simple anymore. 
                          
I am enjoying a peaceful morning breeze and looking around at all the people when one particular person catches my eye. 
                          
My heart drops. It's been almost five years since I've seen him. We have maybe talked three times in that time. Our last conversation was kind of just saying how we were both at peace now. 
                          
For some odd reason, maybe the fact I'm such an emotional person now and the fact that he hadn't known about me having a child, I feel nervous. 
                          
He doesn't see me at first, but then he does and we make burning eye contact. He's by himself, which deep down I find funny, but my dominant emotion is anxiety. 
                          
Great. He's coming my way.
                          
 
FIVE YEARS AGO 
He is screaming louder than I had ever heard him scream. 
                          
"I'M NOT SORRY, ADELE. I'M NOT." He yells. 
                          
I don't let him know I want to cry. Instead, I fight back. 
                          
"Doesn't anything we've done mean anything to you? All the fights we overcame? All the kisses? All the adventures? You're really done?"
                          
"Adele, when I look at you, I see a completely different woman than the one I saw a year ago. You're just not the same. I don't feel the same way about you."
                          
My heart is crushed. 
                          
"Do you ever wonder if YOU'RE the one who changed? I'm still the loud big personality you met in the pub last year." I begin to shout now, anger rushing through me. "YOU JUST CAN'T HANDLE ME ANYMORE. YOU'RE NOT MAN ENOUGH TO ACCEPT THAT I HAVE SUCCESS AND OTHER PEOPLE LOVE ME BESIDES YOU. YOU NEVER WERE A MAN, YOU'RE JUST A BIG KID I'VE BEEN RAISING FOR A YEAR." 
                          
"WOULD YOU LOOK AT YOURSELF!! OUR RELATIONSHIP HAS RUN ON DRINKING AND PARTYING." His voice cracks and he stops shouting, sounding defeated. "I can't live like this, I can't. I'm not in love with you anymore. And I'm not sorry." 
                          
He begins to walk out and I stop him, grasping his arm and searching his eyes. Surely there has to be a little part of him trapped inside that's yelling for him to take me back. There has to be a part of him that still loves me. But his eyes are unfamiliar. They don't bring me the same comfort they used to. They're almost dangerous, and they bring me fear. I feel his eyes search my own. I can sense him desperately trying to search my eyes for the woman he's looking for.
                          
But she's not there. 
                          
"How did we get to this point, Jake? What happened?" I ask softly. 
                          
"I snooped through your phone. That's what I did. And you can't trust me so you blow up on me. That's when I realise who you really are. You're not the woman I loved just a short week ago. You're different. You're scared. You're hiding something-"
                          
I interrupt him, suddenly filled with rage again. That's why I can't find him in his own eyes. The truth is that I've found who he really is. He never believed me, and he was willing to go read my text messages and look through my photos and my notes and my entire life. We had only know each other for a year, of course I wasn't going to share with him every single detail of my life. And he couldn't accept that, so he violated my personal space to find answers. That made me angrier than I ever was in my life, even when my previous boyfriend cheated on me. 
                          
But the reality was also that this was the thing we needed. We weren't in love anymore and neither of us were willing to admit it. Things weren't the same and they hadn't been for several weeks. This had been our breaking point. 
                          
"Exactly. You're the one who changed, the one who broke this. Go, leave. I don't care. I don't care about you anymore or who you are or what you do, because you're nobody to me. I don't love you anymore. Goodbye, Jake." I say, feeling powerful yet so broken. 
                          
I shut the door to what was our bedroom just a week ago, and slide down the wall. I collapse into a heartbroken mess and hear the front door slam. That was it. 
                          
The love of my life was gone. Everything I had worked for was gone forever. It was over and there was nothing I could do about it. That caused me more pain and heartbreak than I had ever experienced before.