Alara
As we pulled up to the house, my chest felt tight. Every breath was shallow, and my hands were clammy as I tried to hold myself together. The drive home had been silent, Kaelen oblivious to the storm raging inside me. I kept replaying Lucas’s words over and over in my head. I felt nothing but
horrible inside of me.
As soon as we got inside, I could feel my composure slipping. I couldn’t pretend anymore. The silence between us was suffocating, and I needed answers. I couldn’t live like this–married to someone who saw me as nothing more than a solution to some unspoken problem.
“Kaelen,” I called out softly, my voice barely steady.
He turned to me, raising an eyebrow in question. “What’s wrong?”
I swallowed hard, bracing myself for the conversation I wasn’t sure I was ready to have. “I know something’s going on. Something about our marriage… something about us.”
His brows furrowed, a hint of confusion crossing his face. “What do you mean?”
“I overheard you talking to Lucas at the event,” I said, my voice trembling. “You said our marriage was not yet official and you had pretended it to be.”
Kaelen’s face went blank, and for a moment, he looked like he’d been caught in a lie. The silence
that followed was deafening.
“I… I can explain,” he finally said, taking a step closer, but I took a step back. I wasn’t ready for his touch. Not now. Not when I didn’t know what was real anymore.
“Then explain,” I urged, trying to keep my voice steady. “Tell me what’s really going on. Did you marry me just because you had to?”
Kaelen ran a hand through his hair, looking more tired than I’d ever seen him. He let out a heavy sigh, his gaze dropping to the floor before meeting mine again. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Alara. I didn’t want to drag you into this mess, but… there were conditions.”
“What conditions?” I asked, my voice laced with hurt. “What could possibly justify marrying someone under false pretenses?”
He hesitated for a moment, as if weighing his words carefully. “It’s about Kaida.”
I felt my heart skip a beat at the mention of her name. Of course. It always came back to her, didn’t it? The ghost of his past that still haunted our present. “Kaida?” I echoed, my throat tightening.
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Kaelen nodded, his eyes filled with a regret I hadn’t seen before. “When we divorced… I thought it was over. But according to the lawyer, if there are still unresolved issues between us then you and I can’t get married. I wasn’t allowed to move on or solidify my position until everything was sorted. The fake marriage was done because I know how much you wanted us to get married.”
I could hardly believe what I was hearing. So, everything sounded outrageous. “And what about
now?” I asked, my voice shaking with emotion. “Are you still waiting for things to be ‘sorted‘ with
Kaida?”
Kaelen hesitated, and that moment of silence was like a dagger to my heart. “We have less than
two months left,” he said quietly. “After that, the agreement is over. And so is any unresolved issue
with Kaida.”
His words hung in the air like a thick fog, suffocating me. “Do you even know where Kaida is?” I
asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Kaelen looked away, avoiding my gaze. “I don’t know where she is right now,” he finally admitted, his voice low. “But I’m sure she’s fine. She wanted to be left alone, and I respected that.”
His casual tone, as if her absence was a simple matter, only made my blood boil. “So, you’re telling me that all this time, you’ve known that we were in an unofficial marriage, and you never bothered to tell me? You never thought I deserved to know the truth?”
“It wasn’t about keeping secrets from you, Alara,” Kaelen said, his tone pleading now. “I didn’t want to drag you into something that didn’t concern you. You’re my wife now, and Kaida… she’s in the
past.”
“The past?” I scoffed, feeling the weight of his words crash down on me. “Then why does it still feel like she’s right here between us? Why does everything come back to her?”
Kaelen stepped forward, reaching out for me, but I pulled away again. I couldn’t let him touch me. Not until I understood where I stood in this tangled mess. “Alara, please,” he said, his voice softer now. “I didn’t mean for it to be like this. I care about you. I do.”
for
“Care about me?” I repeated, my voice breaking. “That’s not enough, Kaelen. I didn’t marry you some twisted sense of duty or obligation. I thought we were building something real, something
based on love.”
“We are,” he insisted, but his words felt hollow.
“Then why does it feel like I’m just… a placeholder? Like I’m here to serve some purpose in your life, and once that’s over, you’ll just toss me aside?”
Kaelen shook his head, but he didn’t have any real answers. “Alara, I didn’t want to hurt you. That
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was never my intention.”
“But you have,” I whispered, tears welling up in my eyes. “You hurt me the moment you decided to marry me for reasons that had nothing to do with love.”
Kaelen looked stricken, but I couldn’t tell if it was because he realized what he had done or if he was simply frustrated that the truth had come out. Either way, I couldn’t bear to look at him
anymore.
“I can’t keep living like this,” I said, my voice barely audible. “I can’t keep pretending that this is real
when all I feel is emptiness.”
He stepped closer, his eyes pleading with me. “Alara, please. We still have time. Things can change. We can make this work.”
But I shook my head, feeling the tears spill over. “I don’t know if I can believe that anymore.”
For a long moment, we stood there in silence, the weight of our broken marriage pressing down on us. I had thought I could make this work–that I could build something real with Kaelen. But now, all I saw were the cracks, the lies, and the pieces of a relationship that had never been whole to begin
with.
Kaelen finally spoke, his voice quiet. “I’m sorry, Alara. I didn’t mean for it to be like this.”
I looked at him through tear–filled eyes, my heart aching with the realization that no matter how much I wanted to believe him, the damage was already done. “I know,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “But I don’t know if sorry is enough.”
Without another word, I turned and walked away, leaving Kaelen standing there in the quiet of our home. And as I left, I wondered if we had ever truly been together at all.
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Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
