The Accidental Wife (Emily and Julian)

107

I'm not an idiot. Silas hasn't been the same with me. It's been a week since the fight and the explosion that turned out to be because of a gas leak. Silas checked on me for two days after what happened, then he didn't call again. Not even once. I asked him numerous times if he wanted to get breakfast, lunch, or dinner with me and he always had excuses. We don't even get coffee anymore. It's like he's avoiding me like the plague. I cannot take this anymore and I want him to talk to him. I want him to get whatever is bothering him out of his system.

"If you really want to talk to him, I think you should make an ambush." I frown at Sabrina's suggestion. How am I supposed to ambush him? Do I even want to do that? It doesn't seem right. Shouldn't I respect his wish if he doesn't want to talk to me? "What if he doesn't want to talk, Rina? What am I supposed to do?" I sigh, pulling the pillow close to me.

"Give it one last try, Rosie. You need to talk to him to put yourself out of your misery," she tells me, but I shake my head.

"I was at fault. You didn't see the way I talked to him or how his face fell." I just wish I could turn back time.

"We all make mistakes. You apologized and if he doesn't want to forgive you, then that's on him, not you." She rubs "But Rosie, does that mean that he is more than just a friend to you?"

my

arm.

I have been asking myself the same question and even though I have been trying to avoid answering it, I think I can now admit that Silas is more than just a friend to me. I think I'm starting to see him differently.

"He is more than a friend." My eyes water as I say these words out loud for the first time.

"Come here," Sabrina mumbles as she pulls me into a hug. We were supposed to be studying, but what we're now doing is far from that. "For what it's worth, I think he has the same feelings for you. I don't think Silas sees you as a friend and maybe) that's what hurt him the most." Could this be true? Does Silas see me as more than a friend?

"But !..." I don't even know what I want to say. To be precise, I don't know how to articulate what I want to say. "I have never thought that he has feelings for me." I frown, looking at her.

"Rosie, you're really smart and a talented designer, but I think when it comes to Silas, your IQ drops to the deepest point of the ocean," she says, shaking her head. "Do you remember when you went to meet your parents and his parents and they all said that they expected you two to end up together?" she reminds me and I slowly nod. "Do you think that they're all wrong? I want you to try to remember the way Silas reacted. Was it normal?"

I think about it for a while, attempting to remember the way he acted. Silas became very nervous when they started mentioning how they knew we would end up together. If I remember correctly, Naomi was the one who tried to help him

out.

Oh my God... Have I been blind?

"I don't know how to talk to him," I tell her, looking down. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to tell him. I can't just directly ask him if he likes me."

"Don't do that. Just try to get him to talk about what happened. Try to understand from him why he reacted that way," she tells me. This is a huge step and if Silas ends up admitting his feelings for me, I know that there will be no going back. I will tell him that I have feelings for him too and we will probably start dating. This idea is so scary because I have never liked the idea of dating friends. What if it doesn't work? How are we going to act then?

IP

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"Rosie, you're overthinking." Sabrina takes me out of my thoughts. "It's better to try.

my thoughts. "It's better to try. This way, you won't ever blame yourself for not trying."

She is right. I need to give this a go even if I'm petrified of the outcome.

"Message him." She hands me my phone. I take my phone from her and send him a text. I don't think we've reached the stage where he starts ignoring me.

If we had reached that stage, he wouldn't have picked up when I called him after the explosion. When I called him that day, it didn't even cross my mind that he might not pick up. He was the first person who came to my mind when the paramedic asked me if I wanted to call anyone.

I finish practice at eight today. I can come over once I'm done.' He replies and I sigh in relief. There are still four hours left.

'Are you going to have dinner with me?' I ask him.

'If you want to.

'I will get us Mexican food.' I know that he loves Mexican food.

"Maybe we can continue studying for three more hours or something," Sabrina suggests after I show her the messages.

We fail to keep studying for three hours and end up closing our textbooks after two hours and Sabrina leaves, saying that I need to think about everything on my own. I decide to read for a while after I make an order. I don't know what I'm going to exactly say to him, but I know that we need to talk. I know that I can't keep things like that between us. I don't want to lose him.

At eighty-thirty, my doorbell rings. I try not to seem eager as I open the door for Silas. I'm used to Silas hugging me once he sees me, but this time he doesn't hug me. He just smiles and says a simple 'hi. This breaks my heart because this is not us. We don't act like that. "Food is I is here," I say, trying to seem okay, even though I was far from feeling okay. "You must be starving, right? I bet you always feel like that after practice." I try to strike up a conversation. "Yeah, I'm very hungry," he says, taking a seat. "Are you doing okay?" he asks me.

"Yes." I nod.

"Your wound is healing," he says, taking a look at my temple where you can barely see the wound now.

"It doesn't hurt anymore," I tell him as I take a seat beside him. "I want to talk to you about something."

"I also want to talk to you," he says. "If you don't mind. I want to go first." Why am I suddenly more worried?

"Okay, but maybe we should eat first," I suggest, and he agrees.

The two of us chat about college as we eat to avoid making the atmosphere awkward. I'm not sure what Silas plans on telling me and as always, I'm expecting something bad.

"So, what do you want to talk about?" I ask him after we finish eating.

"Well... I just want to say that I have been acting childishly," he starts. "I shouldn't have ignored you like that. That was pretty immature of me." Hope fills my heart when he says that because all that I can think about is that his words mean that we can move forward. "I was ignoring you because I didn't want to talk to you, but I needed to do that to be able to understand how we can act around one another." 09:00

How we can act around one another? We should act

"Is there anything wrong with the way we act?" I ask, de

same! Nothing should change.

to know more about what's going on in his mind.

"Not exactly wrong, but we kind of removed whatev

boundaries that once existed." I gulp at his words. "When we removed those boundaries, I guess I got carried away and I gave theself rights that were never mine from the very start."

I can feel where this is going, and I don't like it at all.

"Silas, you didn't do any of that. I just didn't like you telling me what to do and what not to do with my friend," I try to explain my point of view.

"And that's what I mean. When I did that, I violated your right to decide how to act around your friends."

"I don't understand how you want us to treat each other no