Fake Date, Real Fate-Chapter 68: A Blow To The Gut (ii)

My hand was on the door handle and it is trembling. My vision swam with tears and the desperate need for air, clean air that wasn’t thick with his accusations and my own suffocating humiliation. Every cell in my body screamed at me to escape this metal box, this conversation... this man.

Adrien slammed on the brakes, hard. freewebnσvel.cøm

The sudden jolt sent me lurching forward against the seatbelt. A sharp breath hitched in my throat, half shock, half relief. The tires squealed briefly before the car settled, idling roughly by the side of the road. We were somewhere unfamiliar.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t turn to look at me. His hands remained clenched on the wheel, but the white tension in his knuckles seemed to have spread across his entire frame. He was rigid, silent.

The sudden stop had momentarily stunned the panic out of me, but it rushed back in an instant, stronger than before. The silence between us wasn’t calm; it was heavy, dangerous.

My hand fumbled with the door handle, pulling the latch up. The click sounded deafening in the sudden stillness and I pushed the door open.

I stepped out, heels sinking slightly into damp gravel, the door left swinging open behind me. I didn’t slam it. I didn’t even look back.

The air hit me first—cool, thick with the weight of a storm rolling in. The sky, once a warm amber, had turned a bruised gray. Clouds moved like they were holding something back.

"Isabella, wait." His voice was low, tight, but I barely registered it.

"No," I choked out. "I can’t. I can’t be here."

My legs felt like lead, but I continued walking anyways. I needed to run, to put distance between me and him, between me and his poisoned perception of me.

"Where are you going?" he demanded

"Anywhere but here!" I practically shouted, stumbling slightly on the unfamiliar ground before lifting myself up. The chill air bit at my exposed skin, a stark contrast to the feverish heat burning inside me.

I started walking, fast. Not a deliberate, planned walk, but a desperate, fueled flight. My heels clicked sharply on the pavement, the sound jarring in the quiet night. I didn’t know where I was going, only that it was away from him.

Behind me, I heard the car door open. My heart leaped into my throat. Was he following me?

"Isabella!" His voice was sharper now, demanding.

I flinched but didn’t stop.

"Get back in the car," he ordered, closer now.

"No!" I yelled back, the word tearing from my throat. "Leave me alone! Just... just go away!"

Tears were streaming down my face again, cold trails on my heated skin. My chest ached with every ragged breath. I needed space, solitude.

I heard his footsteps behind me, faster now, closing the distance. Panic surged within me.

"I mean it, Mr Walton," I warned, my voice thick with tears and desperation. "If you follow me, I swear..."

"You’re going to walk home from here?" he scoffed, though there was an edge of something else in his tone – frustration? disbelief?

"I’ll figure it out!" I cried, spinning around finally, unable to bear the pressure of him at my back any longer.

He stopped a few feet away, standing tall and imposing. His expression was hard to read in the gloom, but I could feel the intensity of his gaze on me.

"You think I’m just going to leave you on the side of the road?" he asked, his voice lower again, but unyielding.

"Yes!" I sobbed, throwing my hands up in a gesture of raw, overwhelmed despair. "Yes, I do! Because that’s what you do! You judge me, you accuse me, you twist everything I am and everything I do into something ugly and calculating, and then you want me to just... what? Get back in the car? Pretend you didn’t just call me a gold digger who planned this whole damn thing? I can’t! I can’t breathe around you anymore!"

My voice broke, and I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering despite the fire of anger inside me. Am I overreacting? Being too dramatic?

He didn’t say anything, just stood there, watching me fall apart. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating once more.

"Fine," he finally said, his voice flat and emotionless. "If that’s what you want."

He turned and walked back towards the car. The sound of his retreating footsteps felt like the final nail in the coffin of... whatever this was.

He got in, his engine revving. The headlights swung around, blinding me for a second.

Then, the car pulled away.

The first raindrop hit my shoulder—sharp, cold. Then another. And another.

Within seconds, the sky broke open.

The rain wasn’t gentle; it was furious, stinging, relentless. It hammered down with the force of his accusations—cleansing and punishing all at once. My thin blouse soaked through, heavy and clinging like a second skin. My hair, styled hours ago, plastered to my scalp, dripped water into my eyes.

I stood there for a moment, rooted to the spot, the phantom warmth of the car’s engine fading as the cold rain soaked into my bones. The red taillights of Adrien’s car shrunk to pinpricks in the distance, then vanished completely around a bend.

The sting of pain in my chest increased, battling with the cold prison of the rain falling on me.

The silence that followed when the car left was not entirely empty; the rain thundered and my own heartbeat pounded loudly against my ear.

I looked around, blinked the raindrops off my lashes, and saw I had nothing but trees and fences lining the road, viewed mostly through the thickness of the rain as it poured down.

There were no street lights here; only a weak diffused glow of lights from houses a far away. I couldn’t tell how far we drove or in what direction. Was I miles from anywhere? Or just on the edge of a neighbourhood? The gloom and the rain made it impossible to tell.

My feet were already soaking wet, and my impractical heels were a disaster on the damp gravel shoulder.

I wrapped my arms around myself a little tighter and resumed walking, stumbling as the wind swirled wet rain into my face. My teeth began to chatter uncontrollably. The anger and horrible feeling of humiliation wrestled with the cold creeping into my bones and the dawning terror of my isolation.

Where was I going? I had no map, no phone; it was in my purse, i left it in the car, and no idea of my surroundings. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, following the curve of the road because it was the only path available.

Why was I always surrounded by assholes? First Max—who had the nerve to think he could control me, manipulate me like I was some pawn in his game. And now Mr. Walton, Mr. Perfect, Mr. Arrogant, with his sharp accusations and cold eyes that made me feel like I was nothing but a calculated gold digger in his eyes.

I wiped my face with a trembling hand, the sting of the rain matching the sting in my chest. I was tired. So damn tired. Tired of fighting battles I didn’t ask for

A sob wracked my body, swallowed almost immediately by the sound of the storm.

The cold was becoming unbearable. My clothes became heavy weights pulling me down. The ridiculous shoes made my feet throb. The defiant fire that had fueled my exit from the car was slowly being extinguished by the relentless chill.

Ahead, through the blurry curtain of rain, I thought I saw a faint light.

I focused on the light, speeding my pace even though walking felt like a difficult task. The road became paved again under my feet, offering slightly better purchase. The clicking of my heels was a desperate, rhythmic tap against the roar of the rain.

As I got closer, the light resolved slightly. It was coming from a small, structure set back from the road. Was it a shed? A bus stop shelter? It was hard to tell in the gloom, but it offered the promise of something, anything, to break the direct assault of the rain.

I staggered into it, half-running, half-stumbling feeling as if I were suffocating on unruly breaths. I couldn’t think straight! I just simply needed to get out from the intense downpour, to find a spot of dryness somewhere!

Once I got to the structure, I pulled myself under its shallow overhang, leaning heavily against the cold steel. It was little more than a three-sided box, open to the road, with a sagging roof that still allowed a steady stream of water to drip onto the ground near the front. But it was shelter.

I sat down on the solid, cold metal bench, water poured onto the ground beneath me, blending with the tears I couldn’t stop.

The bus would be here soon, and it would take me somewhere—and I mean anywhere but here. But regardless of where I was going, it felt very much like everywhere I could, I was still carrying all of the weight inside of me. The heavy bitter taste of deep disappointment, anger, and exhaustion.

I leaned back my head to the overhang and closed my eyes like I could block the rain and just think for a moment that it could be something else, if for a moment just a situation to lay low and have a break!

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