Not a bad thing

Izzie’s POV
The sound of someone knocking the door was waking me up. I turned around in my big soft bed. Maybe I just imagined it, I pulled my comforter around my body and closed my eyes. There it was again. A knock. I got up and put on my pyjama pants, it probably was Matt. He did say he wanted to see me again this weekend. I was suddenly aware of my messy hair and my sleepy face. I stopped in front of the mirror and tried to model my hair by pulling my fingers through it. I rubbed my face to look more awake and thought about my morning breath. Oh no! There was the knock again, harder and more urgent this time. Damn! I grabbed a mint from my purse. This would have to do.

I walked for the door and opened it with a big smile on my face “Goodmorning handsome” and then saw Brian standing there. “What a nice welcome, but you look disappointed it was me. Who did you expect?” I felt my cheeks turn pink “Uh, no no one, you are handsome aren’t you? I welcomed you the only proper way to welcome a rockstar that’s as pretty as you are” Brian looked at me distrustful, but stepped in the house anyway “I brought coffee and breakfast, us hanging out was long overdue”. He followed me to the couch as I fell down on it, not completely awake yet. “I wasn’t the one who was too busy. You barely came out of the house the past week.” Brian got a big smile on his face. “yes, that might be true, and I would say I’m sorry, but I am not. I had the best week ever” I put a pillow over my face “Please stop, I don’t want the details. Just hand me my coffee”. We sat there for a bit, drinking coffee, eating the breakfast Brian brought me.

“Why don’t you go shower, I will clean this up and we can go for a walk on the beach? The weather is really beautiful outside” I got up of the couch “Don’t you need to go back to Lynn? She’s probably still in your bed, isn’t she?” Brian chuckled “Of course she is, but today is for you. She doesn’t mind.” I walked into my shower. I know Lynn wouldn’t mind, she wants me to be happy and she’ll probably hopes I will tell him about Matt right away. She hadn’t even heard about Matt yet, the girls would be over tonight for a girls night full of cocktails and me telling about my date with Matt. I got out of the shower and wrapped one of my big white towels around me. I walked back into the living room where Brian was flipping through the channels “You know the girls will be over at my place tonight right? We have a girls night.”
“Of course I know, but I will pick up Lynn after and she will be ‘not sleeping’ in my bed tonight.” He had a wicked grin on his face. “Ugh, too much information Bri”, I turned around, walking towards my bedroom “Yeah sure, as if you girls aren’t going to compare Brian experiences tonight!” He yelled after me. I put on some comfortable clothes and found my flip flops “Do you really want me to compare your performance of now with the one from 15 years ago?” I laughed. “You better hope you improved a lot since your 18 year old self!” His cocky smirk fell of his face now he seemed to think about it “Well, no, you better not discuss me tonight, it will be a shame for Lizzy, she will feel left out” I chuckled.

I got my keys, my phone and a bottle of water and started walking for the door “Oh, we will discuss you Brian, woman talk, I told you already. Ready to go?” He got off the couch and followed me outside. “Why did I even want to be with your best friend? You have to choose who you are going to be loyal to” I smiled at him “That one is easy, us girls need to stick together. As if you men don’t discuss us.” Now it was his turn to laugh “Well yes, of course, alllll the dirty details. I might even call Matt and invite him over, I think he had a date last night” I choked in the gulp of water I just took. Brian looked at me with his brow cocked “He did huh? Hope he had a nice night.” I sure hope I was convincing in my little white lie, although it wasn’t really a lie, I was just not telling him the whole story.

“So Izzie, I wanted to ask you something since the first night we re-met. What is the story about you almost getting married?” My heart stopped. I was hoping he forgot about that. I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t know how he was going to react. I stared down at my feet. “Listen Brian, it’s in the past, I don’t really want to talk about it. He hurt me.” Brian glanced at me “Don’t do that, you know you can talk to me about everything. This was a big part of your life without me, I want to know”. I stopped walking and he stopped too, I turned to him. “Do you really want to know?” He nodded “Okay, I will tell you, but you have to promise me something first. What I am going to tell you is not going to be fun. Not for me but uh, not for you either. Please don’t judge me or get mad at me” I could see from his face that he did not get what I just said “Of course I don’t think this will be fun, you got hurt” I looked him in his eyes “No Brian, you don’t understand. You know the guy I was going to marry, the one who left me at the altar. You know him” He still didn’t get it, of course he didn’t, why would he? I took a deep breath “In my last year of college I ran into someone from back home, we started dating and then one night, he got on his knee and asked me to marry him. I should have known, seeing how he treated me the first time, but I said yes.” Brian grabbed my arms, slowly putting the pieces together “Who was he Izzie?” I looked down at his hands, holding my arms “It was Chris” I said quietly.

Brian’s POV.
I heard the words come out of her mouth, but I just couldn’t believe them. Why would she marry a guy who took her virginity and cheated on her the same night? Why would she even start dating him again? I let go of her and let myself fall down in the sand. She sat down next to me, staring at her hands. I sat there, quietly for a while. “Bri, please talk to me. I’m so sorry” I looked at her, she looked worried. “Why, how, what.” I couldn’t even find the words “Just start talking, I don’t get this, so explain it to me.”

Izzie stared at the sea for a long time. For a while I thought she was never going to tell me, then I heard her softly start, it was almost a whisper and I had to make an effort to understand what she was saying. “I was in the last year of college and I got a job at a local bar. It made good money and I had a nice time there. One night there was this big party with students from colleges from other towns. I was serving beers to a lot of drunk men, but I was used to it. At one moment there was a guy at the bar that was staring at me. So I asked him what his poison would be, he answered me with “You Izzie, I want you, it has been such a long time”. It was only then, when I got a closer look, that I recognised it was Chris. He was drunk. I got him his beers and told him to go play with his friends. He came back to the bar a few times, trying to get my number, but I didn’t fell for it. A few days later I was back at work again for my first shift since the party where I’ve seen Chris. As soon as I entered the bar, I saw Chris sit in the corner. My boss told me he had been there for the past few days, always asking for me. I started work and Chris came over to the bar and asked me if he could talk to me for a bit. Maybe meet him for coffee after my shift. I needed my job there, so I couldn’t slack off during work and as it appeared, he wouldn’t be leaving, so I agreed.

That night, at 2 pm, I went for coffee with Chris. He told me he felt really sorry for how he treated me and that he had been trying to track me down the past few months. He had been in therapy. His dad had always been abusive towards him and since he died recently, Chris tried to make a better person of himself. He didn’t want to follow his dad’s footsteps. His therapist had told him to solve the thing that he thought was the first bad thing of his current lifestyle and he thought it had started with me. We talked for hours that night and to be honest, it felt good to have someone around from Huntington Beach, seeing you weren’t there anymore either” I looked at her, she couldn’t pin this one on me, because I had walked away from her. I looked in her eyes. That wasn’t what she was doing, she’s just trying to explain her feeling. She sighed and carried on “Chris and I exchanged phone numbers and he called me the next day, asking me for a date. I put it off, but after two weeks of a lot of texting and late phone calls I gave in. We had the most amazing date and when he brought me home, I let him kiss me. After that our relationship soon escalated, our dates followed each other quickly and after a few months I moved in with him. My lessons had ended and I just needed to write my final paper.

After we both graduated, we got an apartment and started our working life together. I was happy. I never thought I would be able to trust him again, but he didn’t give me any reason not to. In 2007 we were on our yearly holiday in Tuscany. Chris’ mom had remarried an Italian man and she invited us to her house in Italy every year. One beautiful starry night in the gardens of Boboli, Chris proposed to me. Why wouldn’t I say yes? We had been together for some time now and I loved him, or at least I thought I did. We planned to get married in December 2009, because Chris really wanted a winter wedding and I didn’t really care, as long as I could marry him. We would marry in Italy, right before Christmas. We were busy planning everything for 1.5 years. In the meantime, Chris was very busy with work and I would see him less every month. He had a lot of business trips. I was making a career for myself too, so I wasn’t really paying attention. If I think back about it, I can’t believe how stupid I was.” Izzie fell silent again, this must be hard for her, to bring this all up again. I put my hand on hers, encouraging her to tell the rest “We went to Italy in November, just to have enough time to prepare everything. Lynn was my maid of honour, but she was the only one for me there, I wasn’t talking to my mom or dad, my granny died the year before and besides Lynn, I didn’t have much friends. So it was pretty much me and Lynn. Chris had a lot of friends and family and they were all coming, but they would just come a few days before the wedding. However, he had a colleague, a woman, Veronique, he was relying on her a lot for his work, and at the time it only seemed fit she would travel with us right away to help Chris with his work from Italy and maybe even assist us with wedding stuff. I can’t believe how blind I was”

I felt so sorry for her, I kind of figured out what had to come next, but apparently she needed to finish the story now she started it. “The day of the rehearsal dinner I almost caught Veronique and Chris, they were in an almost compromising position in the restaurant, but Chris convinced me nothing was going on and that he loved me. I couldn’t tell anyone, there was no one for me. Only Lynn. But Lynn didn’t like Chris and I knew that if I would tell her, she would just convince me to blow everything off. The day of the wedding Chris went missing for a few hours. My nerves got the best of me, so I wanted to talk to him when we were at the church. I walked over to his chambers and opened the door.” Tears ran down Izzie’s face. I put my arm around her “Izzie, you don’t need to tell the rest of the story, I can guess how it ended” She sobbed “No I will tell you” I squeezed her hand a little. “I opened the door of Chris’ chambers and there he was. His wedding suit on, except for his pants, those were lying around his ankles. Veronique sat in front of him, giving him his last blow job before he got married. Chris saw me turn around and came after me as I was running out of the church. This scene could have come out of a movie easily, you know? I fled to the hotel where Lynn had her room and waited for her there. I knew she would directly come if she noticed I wouldn’t show up. She didn’t disappoint me. In a few hours she had everything arranged for me to return back to the US, but all flights were booked and we couldn’t return before the 5th of January. Once we got back to the US I moved in with Lynn and stayed with her for a few years, until I found a job here and returned to Huntington beach. That was a almost a year ago.”

I held on to her and let my mind wonder, how could this amazing woman get hurt so many times? I would do anything in my power to protect her from any man who will hurt her ever again. She needed someone to look out for her apparently. I let Izzie softly cry and we just sat there until her tears went dry again.

“Come on Iz, let’s get back and order some food, I’m starving”

Notes

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