One Night's Mistake With My Stepbrother

Six

What did he just say? Did I even hear him correctly?

"...What?" I whispered in disbelief.

"We should just break up, Annabelle," he repeated.

Although I heard him loud and clear this time around, I still couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was just so sudden, and he clearly caught me off guard.

"No, I mean why?" I managed to say while stuttering quite a lot. My mind was in a mess and filled with endless unanswered questions. It was a real struggle for me to keep my emotions under control so that we could continue talking.

He can't be serious, can he?

“I thought long and hard about it, and I think that it would be better for both of us this way," Carlton replied quite coldly.

I couldn't understand him even though he sounded so reasonable about it. None of it made sense to me. It can't make sense!

"This is just some kind of bad joke, right? Why are you saying these things? You can't be serious. We promised to get married," I voiced all the questions as I entered into a state of complete denial.

"Annabelle, let's not make this any more complicated for us. We should just end it here," Carlton said, and there was not an ounce of hesitation in his voice.

I was about to open my mouth to protest against this decision when suddenly someone else entered my field of vision. I looked up to see my dear friend Thalia standing there.

"Oh, Thalia..." I greeted her while feeling quite surprised that she suddenly turned up. Since the company that we worked at belonged to her father, it wasn't unusual for us to run into her in this neighborhood. Although, I had to say that she turned up at a very rotten time.

"Carlton and I are getting married next week," she announced before smiling smugly.

"What?" I asked after a moment of stunned silence. First, it was Carlton who said that he wanted to break up with me, and then Thalia turned up and announced that the two of them were getting married.

What is going on?

"I thought we agreed that you would leave it to me to break things off with her," Carlton turned to say to Thalia.

"I guess, but it seems like she was having a hard time understanding you," Thalia said before smiling my way again. That was enough proof for me that the two of them had been making a fool out of me, and probably for a very long time already.

I sat in silence as a cold void of emptiness welled up inside of me. My chest felt tight, and tears threatened to spill from my eyes. It felt like I was about to have an emotional breakdown, and the only thing that was keeping me from bursting out into tears right in front of them was my pride.

"Oh, by the way, you are invited to our wedding," Thalia said as she slid a rosy pink envelope my way. I knew without a doubt that the envelope contained their wedding invitation.

"Well, this is a little insulting. I had thought that maybe I would make it onto your list of bridesmaids," I said before slowly standing up from my seat.

Since they went through the trouble of inviting me to their wedding, I decided to turn up. If nothing else, seeing the two of them getting married will probably give me proper closure.

That evening I returned home alone with a broken heart and without my usual friend to turn to. I had always felt thankful for living with my mother, and times like these only highlighted the importance of our close bond.

I wiped my tears away and reapplied some of my makeup so that I would appear fine.

I didn't want my mother to see me in such a sorry state because she would start worrying about me endlessly, and I couldn't bring myself to be a burden to her. I didn't want her to feel disappointed in me after all the trouble that she went through to raise me as a single mother.

My mother was waiting for me in the living room. She smiled instantly when she spotted me before waving me over to sit next to her on the sofa. I tried my best to smile naturally so that she wouldn't be able to tell that something was wrong. The truth was that my mother really liked Carlton, and she was a big supporter of our relationship. She was over the moon happy when we got engaged, and she was looking forward to our wedding.

"You're finally back. Was work busy?" she asked with a slightly worried look on her face.

"It's the same as usual," I replied while trying to sound natural.

My mother suddenly pulled me into a tight hug, as if she could sense that I needed some comforting. I hugged her back tightly as I enjoyed the security that I felt in her embrace. When she finally loosened her arms from my body and I could see her face again, I could tell that she had a slightly hesitant and worried look on her face.

"What is it?" I asked.

My mother's eyes darted from side to side as if she was pondering whether or not to tell me something. I realized then that she must have been waiting for me to come home because she had something that she wanted to tell me.

"Actually, I have something important to tell you," she said before trailing off, as if to gather her courage.

Her words got me feeling very curious, and I couldn't stop staring at her face.

"What is it? You can tell me anything. Do you need help with something?" I asked her as I took her hands into my own.

"Well, you know... the man that I told you that I've been dating," she said, and I nodded my head in response.

A little more than half a year ago, my mother began dating this guy whom she met while she was working as a florist in a flower shop close to a hospital. How they met felt like a scene straight out of a romantic movie. One day, one of the delivery girls working at the florist called in sick, and my mother had to take her place in delivering flowers for a regular customer who always ordered flowers to be delivered to one of the patients on a daily basis at the hospital close to the flower shop. My mother’s date turned out to be the patient waiting to receive flowers from my mother on that day. I didn't know the details, but apparently, they fell in love after my mother delivered flowers to him each day as part of her job and then started dating after he was discharged from the hospital. The unsettled look on her face made me wonder if something had gone wrong in their relationship.

Don't tell me that he broke up with her too...

It’s enough trouble that I had to deal with my own heartbreak without layering on my mother’s heartbreak on top of things.

After a very rough life that my mother had gone through in order to raise me alone, I wanted nothing but the best for her because she deserved it. My father deserted her after he found out that she was pregnant with me. I have never met my father before and I didn't even know who he was. Despite the challenges, my mother had always cherished me and was thankful that I came into this world. She did her absolute best to raise me while working multiple jobs to make ends meet. Growing up, I remembered her taking up jobs wherever they were willing to employ her, and it took quite a few years before she got regular employment as a florist. I stared into the face of the woman who dedicated her life to making mine a better one, and I swore to myself that I would make sure to do everything within my power to make her happy. My love for her was just as endless as her love for me.

"George, right? Of course, I remember him," I said while trying to sound cheerful.

My mother talked about him quite often, although I wondered if she realized that I had never gotten a chance to meet him in person.

"Well, you see... he, um...he proposed to me. And... I accepted his proposal," she finally managed to disclose while stuttering quite a lot in the process.