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I
t was supposed to be a lazy day inside. The door was locked, and his phone had been tossed across the room with airplane mode turned on. The pillow was placed upon his head, and he pressed into it even harder as he begged himself to just sleep. The memory replayed in his head repeatedly, almost like a broken record on loop, and he couldn't stop it.
She was the best thing that had happened to him so far; he should have known better. She was too good to be true as the way she had looked at him flashed before his eyes. He knew a tornado soon would enter his life and flip everything upside down, but for the first time in a while, he felt as if nothing mattered; he had lost her before he had even gotten the chance to call her his. It was irony in the cruelest form, and he had no one to blame but himself.
Before it had even happened, he saw it coming; he heard the footsteps from across the hallway of his penthouse at the top floor of a private complex in the city. The noise filled the bedroom, and he began to count down under his breath with the pillow still placed over his head.
“Three.”
“Two.”
“One.”
The door to the master bedroom went flying open; it was odd. He expected her to bang on the door with her fists and yell until he would give up and open the door. May charged into the bedroom with full force; she completely disregarded the state of the giant room with pillows and sheets tossed around as she yelled his name at the top of her lungs. He cursed under his breath as he spoke.
“I thought I locked the door.”
She smirked back at him as she jiggled the set of keys in her hand before his eyes as she spoke up with sarcasm laced in her tone.
“Shouldn’t have given me a spare key.”
He didn't get the chance to say anything at all; before he knew it, she jumped onto the bed, leaving no room for him to even react; she spoke up in her same high-pitched tone.
"You're being sued, David. I just got word from the courthouse. Kat says it's serious this time; she says they have proof. She didn't tell me details, but we need to take care of this before it reaches the press."
He stared back at her with a blank expression, and she knew instantly that something was up with him. She raised an eyebrow and completely pulled the pillow away from his face, putting her entire focus on him as she spoke.
“What’s going on with you?”
He tried to avoid her, but by now, he had learned the hard way; there was no ignoring her. David looked away from her and refused to meet her eyes, but May was not one to give up easily. She pulled herself closer to him as she spoke up once again.
"What is it? I feel like you're not telling me something, and you know I hate it when you lie to me."
She trailed off, but he could sense the anger in her tone. He had started to feel like he was being suffocated; even with the view of the city at his feet towards the bed. There was a glass window that was practically the size of the wall. He took a deep breath; now, all his worst fears had started to come back to him, and he had no idea how to stop them from causing him to choke on his words.
He stood up abruptly as he reached for a winter coat in a light shade of gray; he shrugged it over his shoulders, and May watched him with curiosity in her eyes. He was about to walk out the door when she spoke once again; each one of the words that left her mouth were dripping in confusion.
"David, where the hell are you going? This is serious; you can be an emo teen later. Right now you're being sued, and you need to tell me how to go about this situation."
She was nervous; May was never nervous when it came to things like this; it could only mean one thing. The people he had working at the state and the courthouse were panicking. He knew what it meant.
She went through with it...
He didn't really know why, but deep down, he was hoping she would come back, and she would ask for the whole story; a part of him wanted her to have some hope in him, but clearly, she had made her choice. He was pushed out of his thoughts when he heard May. She cleared her throat loudly, and he was back in the current moment. He sighed as he spoke up.
"May, you know I love you, and I trust you with my life, but this time, I think I need you to step back. This one, I may deserve.”
The words left his mouth, and he didn't wait for another second; he simply left her there in the room. May had never seen him like that; she felt a pinch towards her heart as she cursed silently. The memory flashed before her eyes, and instantly, she began to put two and two together.
The last time May had spoken to David, she still remembered the glow that was spreading across his face was as if he had just been sent down from heaven or something. She had seen the way he was smiling, and she was quick to raise the topic as the words fell from her mouth in a loving manner.
“Look at you all happy. This must be the work of a girl.”
He had tossed his scarf across the huge L-shaped couch in the living room as he shrugged off her words, refusing to admit to it being the truth. May was never one to give up quickly; she pushed and pushed and began to bully him just like a little sister should until he finally gave in. His body dropped down next to her on the couch, and his head fell into her lap. As he spoke, he allowed his eyelids to fall shut, and just by the look on his face, she instantly knew he had fallen in love. Soon enough, the words left his mouth, further confirming her suspicions.
"She's perfect, May. She is a lawyer, and oh my God, she's such a badass, the kind of girl who doesn't even need to try, and yet when she walks into a room, all eyes fall on her."
May didn't say a single word; she just stared, as she swore to herself she never thought this day would come. She smiled to herself, enjoying a side of him she hadn't seen in ages as he went on with his eyes closed; he looked like a child who had just found his first crush across the hall in middle school.
“She just has this aura about her, May, and she’s so down to earth. Whenever I’m around her, I keep wondering where she’s been all my life and why she was hidden all along.”
The memory faded to the back of her mind, and she jumped off the couch. David had already left, but his words from the night after the charity event remained glued to her mind; she played what he said repeatedly.
“She’s a lawyer....”
Suddenly, her heart skipped a beat, and she knew exactly what had happened. This was something she knew she would have to deal with one day. She took a deep breath before she grabbed her jacket and laced her phone to the ear. As soon as she heard the driver’s voice on the other end, she spoke up.
"Arnold, I need you to bring one of the cars around; we're paying a visit to a certain lawyer."
