I'm Yours Only, Sophie J Brain [i am malala young readers edition txt] 📗

“Greg I can see it in your eyes” She murmured softly, how could she not have realised? She had seen him at the funeral and for Christmas the year after and Eloise had been there on both occasions, had Greg given her the same longing looks then? The ones Nicky had seen when they were still in school, too subtle for anyone else but for her they stood out a mile. They were bound to; she had caught herself giving the same looks to Chris.

“It doesn't matter how I feel” Greg shrugged and sat down “she won't feel the same way”

“Please tell her Greg” Nicky urged “Don't make the same mistake I did”

Greg looked up sharply “The same mistake as you?”

Nicky stood up and quickly paced the room “I just know what it's like when you love someone and you wait too long to tell them or you're scared to show your true feelings so you let them walk away and at some point you lose them completely”

“You haven't lost Boris?”

Nicky stopped pacing and said softly “it wasn't Boris”

Greg stood up and looked her in the eye “Nicky do you love someone else?”

She felt the tears roll down her face slowly “I think I might but I need to marry Boris. I love him too, I know I do”

“Love him more than the other bloke?” Greg asked.

Nicky was silent for a long while and then with tears streaming down her face she violently shook her head and began to sob. Greg put his arms around her as she sobbed silently into his chest, she had come to terms with the fact that her feelings for Chris would always be there but with Greg in front of her asking her the very same thing it made her feel completely terrible.

“I'm not sure if it's the man I love or the memory” Nicky mumbled when the tears subsided. “Who is this guy?” Greg asked softly

“The one I was seeing before we left school” Nicky muttered

Greg started to walk out “I couldn't give you an opinion one way of the other Nicky as I never met him but you have twenty minutes until you go to say your vows so if I were you'd I think hard about it”

As he left Nicky wiped her eyes and sat down heavily on her chair. That was not much help as she had been doing little else for the last two weeks and she very much doubted the next twenty minutes were going to suddenly make everything clear. Still there was little else to do so with a sigh she once again relived her last conversation with Chris in vain hope that this time it might give her the answer.

“Go away”

For a moment the knocking stopped and Chris let himself believe that Tom, his only true friend, had finally given up. It was such a lovely moment, full of peace and promises however it was not to be an everlasting one as after about 30 seconds he heard the letter box open “Come on Chris you cannot wallow in there all day”

“Tom just leave me be please” he shouted back

“I just want to make sure you are ok”

Right enough really was enough, since it was apparent that Tom was not and had no plans to be departing the scene, Chris walked over and wrenched the door open, only smiling slightly when Tom fell in the doorway.

Chris helped him up “I'm fine Tom I just want to be alone”

“You don't want to be alone” his friend countered “you want to be here all loved up with that girl”

Chris felt his heart slam in his chest; it had been one week since he had decided to give up his own happiness for her, so she could feel good about herself, but it in no way made him feel any better. Each time he glanced at the clock he could imagine things that she would be doing at that moment, the worst thing was he had no idea as to the time frame of the wedding so the images were always one painful film in his mind. First she would be getting ready and laughing with her friends then it would move onto her walking down the aisle after that there would be the vows and then just to really kick him down he would see her kissing her new husband marking the end of the ceremony.

He turned his head so he was facing Tom “I want to be alone Tom, please go”

“She has married someone else Chris” Tom said rather unnecessarily “Let her go or at least let me take you out for a drink”

Chris knew that going for a drink was most certainly not the best idea in the world. When he was drinking it usually led to him going home with a random girl and while that might have been a good notion before, he had lost the feeling for that sort of behaviour now. It wasn't him at all and when he really thought about it he didn't know why he had done it so often. After his engagement had ended he hadn't been able to get Nicky out of his mind, their time together (the good and the bad times) had played over in his head and he found he couldn't stop his thoughts. He had been too ashamed of himself to try and find a way to contact her and he had decided that she would surely have found someone else, which of course caused more awful images to swim around in his mind. So in the end it was easier to go out and have a few too many drinks and when that didn't do the trick he would decide that he needed company, so he wouldn't be left alone with his awful thoughts.

Chris sat down and looked at his friend, hoping the lack of energy he felt didn't show too much in his face and then with a resigned sigh he stood up and walked over to his coat stand “Is there any chance you will just leave?”

Tom smiled “None at all”

“One drink” Chris said as he pulled on his coat “One drink only and then I'm coming home.”

They walked slowly to the pub, neither saying anything. Chris realised that his friend could sense that he needed some time to his own thoughts and for this he was extremely grateful. Chris had known that this day was not going to be easy but at least now he could start to move on like she had asked, maybe he could find someone who would make him contented who could really say what would happen in the future?

“So what was so great about this girl?” Tom asked when they arrived at the pub

Chris paused as they walked in and sat down “She was just perfect” leaving Tom to digest this Chris went up to get their drinks, he hadn't been expecting such a serious talk and wasn't sure he was ready for one.

As he turned around with the drinks he saw Tom talking to some woman and rolled his eyes. Tom would never be satisfied unless he had some girl on his arm. The two of them had met in university within the first week and had become friends straight away. After Chris had ended things with Maisy, Tom had got a job near him and had moved closer so most of his weekend binges had been with Tom at his side, well until Tom found a girl to be with and he always found a girl to be with.

Chris sat down and smiled knowingly “I see you have made a friend”

The woman in question stuck her arm out and shook his hand “I'm Cindy, Tom says you're a teacher”

Chris raised an eyebrow and looked at his friend “Did he?”

Tom smiled wickedly “He did”

“I used to love being at school” Cindy said with a tight smile, obviously annoyed at the conversation being turned away from her “I would have loved it more if I had had a nice good looking teacher like you there”

Chris smiled at her, she was trying to make a move on him and he knew that he was going to let her. When he had come out he had been adamant that he would not go off with any girl but he decided he could not be alone that night, not with the knowledge that Nicky would be married and in arms of another. Tomorrow he would turn over a new leaf and start to find someone he could picture a lifetime with but he couldn't just then, his pain was just too much and the thought too hard. So instead of politely knocking her advances Chris found himself smiling as he murmured “I would have loved teaching you”

Nicky's heart started beating the moment she heard the music play, images kept playing around in her mind, bad images, images of her and Chris getting married, she could even imagine him smiling as he saw her for the first time.

“Nicky, you ready?”

Nicky turned around and smiled at her dad “I have to be ready now”

“It's ok to be nervous” her dad soothed “I was”

Nicky looked at him sharply, “You had second thoughts?”

“I said I was nervous” her dad said “not that I had second thoughts”

She nodded slightly, was it nerves or was she having second thoughts? Nicky knew that she had doubts but she also knew that she had to marry Boris, she knew what to expect with him and while she might not be as happy as she could be she knew she was safe and could depend on him. He would never hurt her and she would never hurt him.

That's what she kept thinking as she walked down the aisle getting closer and closer to the man she was soon going to be married too, she looked around and saw Greg and Eloise sat together, her dad followed her line of vision and murmured “It's a shame Kevin isn't here”

Nicky smiled weakly and kept looking forward, it was most certainly not a shame that Kevin wasn't there. Nicky was glad he was dead, glad that she would not have to see the look on his face at times like this, she had never told Boris what he had done to her, somehow it had never seemed important. She had met Boris after Kevin had died so it wasn't like the pair were ever likely to meet and she had never felt like she could tell him, every time she had decided to tell him something had made her change her mind. Maybe she knew deep down that he would just dismiss her and not truly listen and that would convince her of something she wasn't sure she wanted to believe.

Soon Nicky found herself stood next to Boris, she looked up at him hopefully but her heart did not skip a beat, her stomach did not flip, and the smile Boris gave her wasn't one filled with love and happiness. It was a smile of someone who was proud not someone so desperately in love.

Nicky felt the blood drain from her face as the Vicar started the ceremony, she was about to marry someone who did not love her. Nicky knew she didn't love Boris as much as she could but she had convinced herself that he loved her that he truly loved her and he could have pure happiness. Now looking at him she could see he was not in love with her and he would never feel more than the contentment that she was destined to feel but why was he marrying her? Probably because he thought he loved her, the same why she had been sure she was totally in love with him until two weeks ago.

Chris' face floated in her mind again, he had truly loved her. Nicky had been able to tell, she remembered that weekend they had spent in Kent,