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

sure what had happened or what to say, but she did know one thing. Her two best friends were happy.

She smiled, that was all she really wanted so did it matter how it had all happen? It was while she was turning back to them that she saw Chris, with a friend, looking in her direction. She knew he had seen her so she waved.

“I’ll be back in a moment” she murmured before walking over to him. “Good afternoon how was your sister?” Chris smiled “she gave birth and I have a lovely baby nephew now.”

Something about his voice, full of love and compassion, warmed her insides. She felt closer to him than she ever had before, for reasons she couldn’t explain, and she knew she wanted more of his warmth.

Reluctantly she pulled her face away from Chris and to his friend, who had been watching with interested “I’m Nicky Bennett” she smiled.

“Tom Robson” the friend replied.

The name rang a bell in her head, Chris had told her about him before. Tom was his oldest and closest friend and would surely know everything about their relationship. Awkwardness and shame washed over her as her past behaviour hit her like a brick wall but she knew she couldn’t, and shouldn’t, focus on that. She had started to look to the future and she would be damned if she turned back to the past. Besides everyone made mistakes.

“Well I am glad you’re back.” She smiled, turning back to Chris.

“Would you like to meet for a drink later?” Chris asked “we could meet at the Bell?”

Nicky felt her cheeks go warm and her insides started to do summersaults. She nodded “that would be lovely, what time?”

“Eight?”

She nodded again “sounds perfect.”

Chapter Seventeen and Epilogue

Chapter Seventeen

 

“Well she certainly seemed nice” Tom remarked as they walked back to Chris’ “I can see why you like her.”

“I love her” Chris corrected.

“What are you going to say to her tonight?”

Chris sighed, he had no idea. He was almost certain that she still felt the same way but he didn’t want to rush her into a decision. She was probably still temperamental after ended her engagement and he had no wish had any extra stress onto her shoulders. In a lot of ways this would be there first real date, which meant there was so much ground to cover. They had to catch up properly and get to know each other and then they could proceed.

“I will just be honest” he finally replied. Honesty was something they both needed. He knew that if he had been honest with her four years ago then they would still have been together.

They arrived back at his house and he let them both in. They walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table. Chris watched as Tom drifted off into his own thoughts and frowned. Something was different about Tom, he seemed older somehow, perhaps just more mature. His usual jokey demeanour had become more serious and concentrated. He had first noticed it when they had been talking to Nicky in the field. By nature Tom was a flirt but he hadn’t been that way towards Nicky. Chris would have liked to think that was because of how much she meant to him but he knew it wasn’t. Tom flirted not because he was trying to get someone into bed but because that was who he was. Except for that day it seemed.

“Why are you looking at me?” Tom asked.

Chris blinked “I’m not, I was just day dreaming.”

“Ah” Tom replied “right I better be going, I have people to see, let me know how tonight goes.”

Chris stood to see him out “I will.”

 

Nicky let out a small breath in an attempt to calm her nerves. She knew what she had to do but couldn’t quite get the strength to do it.

She hadn’t seen Boris since she had left the wedding and she had no idea what to say to him. She turned back to her father, who was waiting in the car, and his supportive smile gave her the courage that she needed. She had made her bed and it was time to lay in it.

She knocked on the front door and waited for Boris to answer. A few moments later the door swung open and she was greeted by her ex fiancé. She walked into the house and looked around at her surroundings, she had lived there for two years and yet she felt no connection to the place. It had never been her home and she had never felt secure there. She had never realised how much she had truly wanted to escape from the place.

The only time she had felt it properly was the night she had reunited with Chris, she had been sat in the house looking at her reflection and all she had wanted to do was run and never come back.

Of course, the sensible side of her had told that that was impossible and so she had chosen to go to the pub instead. Who knew such a small decision would change her life forever?

“Good afternoon, Boris” she murmured, not knowing what to say but determined to be as nice as possible. He hadn’t deserved any of the trouble she had caused him.

“Hello” he greeted “I have already boxed some things up for you.” “Thank you” she replied “I will gather everything else and be out as quickly as possible.”

He nodded and walked back in the direction of his study. The action, she realised, was an appropriate reminder of the life they had led together. She walked into upstairs to the bedroom and started to put her things into a suitcase. She opened the wardrobe and found it empty of her belonging except for her long white dress. The one she had worn to her leavers’ ball. She took it out and folded it neatly into her suitcase.

Within thirty minutes everything was packed in her dad’s car and she was ready to start the rest of her life. She walked to Boris’ study and knocked on the door before walking inside.

“I’m all packed” she murmured.

He nodded but didn’t reply.

She took of her engagement ring and placed it on the desk. She turned to leave but some devil inside of her forced her to turn back. “I’m sorry” she said before she could stop herself “for everything I did. I should not have waited until I did to end things.”

He looked up “I have been thinking about what you said, about how I don’t love you.” She swallowed and focused on looking calm. She had almost forgotten that she had said that.

“I honestly asked you to marry me because I loved you” he continued “I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you.”

She shuffled slightly “that is why I accepted.”

He looked at her for what must have been the longest minute of her life then stood “Do you remember what happened three weeks ago?”

Nicky blinked at the sudden change in subject and shook her head helplessly.

“You came to me and asked for a favour” he murmured “some people you didn’t want to have back for dinner due to a bad experience.”

The memory flooded back to her. The day after Maisy and her husband had come over, had that really only been three weeks ago? So much had happened since then.

“I dismissed it without asking any more details” he said “if I had loved you I wouldn’t have been so thoughtless to your feelings. You did the right thing on Saturday by not marrying me, I don’t think it would have been a long marriage.”

She nodded and held out her hand “thank you Boris, I needed to hear that.” He shook her hand and stepped back “have a good life, Nicky.”

She walked out to her dad in the car and smiled. That was the first time Boris had ever called her Nicky, despite her saying it was how she preferred to be called. It had always been Nicola since the moment they had met. Perhaps she was finally becoming Nicky Bennett again.

 

Later that day, Nicky was in her room trying to decide what to wear for her date with Chris. There first proper date as a maybe couple. She felt nervous beyond relief and she had no idea what to say to him. She still wasn’t sure if she still loved him the way she used to or if they would work out in the long run.

She picked up the boxes from her floor and started to unpack them. After about ten minutes she found a box that was different the others, it looked older and was a different shape. She sat down next to it and started to look through it. She picked out a few pictures, picture of her and Chris, some books and some tops. It was her break up box, where she had put all of the things that reminded her of Chris. She looked deeper and found a CD, she frowned it was a collection of love songs. She put the CD on and waited for the first track to play, within seconds Rick Astley’s “Never gonna give you up” played out the room. Nicky felt her insides fill with happiness as she remembered why she had put the CD in the box. She laughed to herself at the memory.

She had had a fight with Anthony, she couldn’t remember what about but it had put her in a foul mood. She had gone to Oxford that day and had found the CD, there were a few tracks she liked on it so she had bought it.

When she arrived back in Crowmarsh, she had bumped into Chris and, still in a bad mood, had gone back to his house. She had told him what had happened with Anthony and he had put the CD on. Rick Astley had played out and Chris had danced and sang to the whole thing, purely to make her laugh. It was at that point that she realised she loved him and wanted to be with him forever.

Not just in the romantic way that she had always known it but in logical way as well. Everything had pointed to love and she hadn’t wanted it to end.

She realised that that feeling was still inside of her and in that moment all of her doubts vanished.

 

Chris wiggled impatiently in his seat and glanced out the window, desperate for a glance of Nicky. He had been so eager to meet her that he had arrived at the pub thirty minutes early. As the hands of the clock moved closer to eight he found that he became more fidgety and nervous. What was wrong with him? This was Nicky for goodness sake, they had spent time alone together before and if he got what he wanted then they would again. There was no need to be nervous.

At about ten to eight he saw her walk into the pub. He sat up straighter and waved at her, trying not to feel too giddy at the smile of affection she gave him back. She walked over and sat opposite him.

Chris took a long look at her, she was nervous as well, he could sense it, but