“Good night, Ester!” my co-worker says before she heads out of the door.

“Good night, Stacy. I will see you tomorrow morning,” I reply. Closing up the shop has always been one of the worst parts of my day. Most people would be happy to close up shop and go home but not me. I love my job. I get to plan days where couples say their ‘I do’ and start the rest of their lives together with one of the best parties of their lives.

One of my favorite things about my job is seeing how in love these couples are and how excited they are to start their next chapters. It gives me inspiration for when Alex finally pops the question to me.

Alex and I have been dating for three years now and I can feel that the questions will be asked sometime very soon. And, knowing him, he will pick one of the most romantic places he can think of and say that the view isn’t even close to my beauty. That’s when I will tease him and tell him he is too cheesy. At that moment, he will bend down on his knee and ask me to be his wife. To be his partner forever and ever.

I turn off the last of the lights and walk out of the door to my apartment. I look up to the sky and realize that there are no clouds like my weather app said earlier this morning. A slight breeze gives a butterfly in my chest life as my eyes lock on the many people walking in front of my shop. One of the best purchases I have ever made was this shop that went for sale right on the edge of the most romantic streets in the country.

On a perfect summer evening, such as this one, I like to walk back to my apartment. I can see the lovely tourists. Family vacations, honeymoons, weddings, and even school trips. I love seeing the place I live to be so alive and full of people. I believe that is what makes a great neighborhood.

I walk to the building that I moved into not that long ago. Its wavy walls instead of straight is what got my attention. I had never seen a building quite like this and so I had to live in it. The floor-to-ceiling windows give a nice view out into the city and luckily the shades are thick enough to cover at night so no one can look into your place and spy on you.

I walk up the stairs, to get as much exercise in the day as possible, and walk up to my door. I put the keys into the lock and open the door to my apartment and in front of me, Alex sits on the couch. His hands are holding up his head he is swinging low. Quickly putting my things down, I fastly walk over to Alex to see what is going on.

“Alex, babe, what is going on?” I sit right next to him but he moves away from me as soon as I make contact with the couch. Once he gets to the other end of the couch, he makes eye contact with me and a single tear falls down his cheek.

“Alex, tell me what is going on,” I say.

His lip quivers right before he takes a deep breath. “Do you remember that night about two months ago when I went out with the boys to that new bar down the street?”

I nod, wondering if something bad happened to one of his friends. He loves those guys like they are his brothers and he would do anything for them. I only wish I had a friendship like that but I always moved schools and therefore I never got the opportunity to make lifelong friends.

“There was something I wasn’t completely honest about.”

Oh no, I hate these kinds of things. Situations that make me have to have a difficult conversation with someone. These are the kinds of things I can not stand.

“I got really drunk and met this girl.”

Oh no.

“I wasn’t thinking straight…” Alex didn’t finish his sentence.

This can’t be happening right now.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“You cheated on me,” I said so quietly it could have counted as a whisper.

Alex nods and looks down at the ground. He is clearly ashamed but he should be. The heat on my cheeks matches the heat that is rising in my chest and boiling my blood. How dare he cheat on me? But I have to keep in mind what I have been taught since I was a little girl and that is to turn the other cheek and forgive.

“It’s okay. I mean it’s not okay but we can work this out. It was a one-time thing and it will never happen again right?”

He looks at me with glassy eyes, showing me that there is more to the story than what he has told me already.

“She is pregnant, Ester.”

Glass shattering fills my head and I am sure it is the sound of my heart breaking into a million pieces. The feeling of a thousand bowling balls suddenly hits my chest and I desperately heave to find some fresh air. This can not be happening. I refuse to believe that this is not a dream. Nope, not a dream, this has to be a nightmare.

“Well, how does she know it’s yours? It could be anyone’s baby,” I blurt out. I will say anything to give myself a little more hope in this situation. Anything that could give us a second chance.

Alex shakes his head and replies, “I’m sorry, Ester. I am so so so sorry.”

Blurry vision, an upturned stomach, and boiling blood overstimulate my body. I have to get out of here. I can’t stand to be around this man for any longer.

I stand up from the couch and immediately fall back to sit down. My head is full of air and feels as if it will make me float without my permission. I have to keep control of myself. I have to feel like I can control at least one thing in my life and if I can’t control myself then I have control over nothing. I. Must. Be. In. Control!

Alex’s eyebrows show concern and he steps closer to me. That gives me enough motivation to get up completely and storm out of the apartment, leaving the love of my life behind. I can hear the door to my apartment open and Alex calling my name but I don’t hear his footsteps chasing after me. If he really wanted me then he would have done everything he could to go after me… right?

I know exactly where I am going to go that will calm my mind. Somewhere that made me sure I wanted to live in this very neighborhood. The lake that I have wanted to live near since I was a little child. The lake is where my last memories of my father are and where I can feel like a child without any responsibilities taking over my mind. I can feel free in a land of memories and frolic in the field of moments.

As I make my way to the destination that I desperately need to escape to, I notice the clouds in the sky. The clouds match my mood exactly. Sadness with a mixture of hate and rage but not enough to burst into tears yet. Full of darkness but still a bit of light where it is not scary yet, where there is hope that it could still get better.

I walk up to the pier where my father taught me how to fish. This lake isn’t big, you could easily swim across it with no trouble. The biggest fish in here are bigmouth bass and even those are rare to catch in this lake.

The water is so calm that you can see the ripple a leaf across the lake causes when it falls into it. Not a lot of people know about this lake because it is so out of the way that people don’t tend to hike this far off the path. Because of that, I can get guaranteed peace when I come here. I’ve known this lake for almost twenty years and I have ran into someone once or twice but there is almost a one hundred percent chance that no one will be at the lake when I come here.

The water reflects the sad clouds above me and the once quiet forest around me starts to get riled with the wind passing through it. The trees start to sway but not violently yet, so I kneel on the pier and wail out to the ghost of my father.

“Dad, I need your help. I wish I had your arms to wrap around me. Alex, the man I thought was the one, cheated on me. And worst of all, he is having a kid with this random woman. He probably didn’t even exchange ten words with her.”

The tears come flowing out of my eyes, falling into the lake. Funny to think that a tiny piece of my DNA is now in the lake where I have the best memories ever. And right on queue, the clouds start to cry with me. Steam comes off of my body as the cold rain hits my anger-filled body. Tears and rain blend into one as they make their journey to meet the lake beneath me. The reflection that is staring back at me is morphed into some monster that I have never seen before. A sad and hopeless girl.

Lightning strikes around me but I don’t care. I can’t seem to get myself off the pier. Flashes in the sky gives my reflection a silhouette look to it. The silhouette never leaves though, which seems strange to me. I turn around to see that a tree right behind me is on fire and barely sticking to the ground. It could fall any second.

Heart pumping fast, I attempt to get up on my feet as fast as I can. But the pier is slippery from the rain that my foot slips and fall into the water. Not able to touch the bottom of the lake, I kick my feet as hard as I can to surface the water and with a gasp, I emerge. But before I can take a full breath, the tree falls on me.