Snub

There was no way in hell that the snow or sleet nor ice would keep Paige Carson from making it to the restaurant that evening.  The snow  was coming down so hard that it made the windshield cover over with a white blanket repeatedly.  She stopped twice on the side of the road to pull the ice off of the wipers so she could see.

Her mother warned her to just stay home and meet with him tomorrow.  But she had to go.  It was Valentine's Day and she wanted to share the news with her long time boyfriend, Edmund.

They were going to be parents.

Paige figured that was the thing that would pull them back together-make everything that was wrong-right again.  At least what she hoped for.

She pulled into the parking lot and looked around for his car.  Nothing. When she made her way inside the restaurant, she searched the crowd to see his face.  Nothing again.  After she was seated at the table she looked at her watch.  He was over thirty minutes late. The waiter delivered her drink and offered her something to eat. She politely refused as she kept her face planted towards the door, ignoring the pitiful and sympathetic looks from all the other couples around her.

Paige rummaged through her purse and pulled out her phone to see if Edmund had called.  Which he had not.  She felt like a fool.  She laid out some money on the table and was just about to leave when Edmund came rushing into the restaurant.

"Sorry I'm late."  He sat down at the chair opposite of her, not the one seated next to Paige.

That's odd, she thought.  Every other time they went somewhere, Edmund sat right next to her.

"That's fine,"  Paige responded and admonished herself internally for thinking that he was going to stand her up. 

Edmund was quiet for a few minutes when Paige decided to break the news.  That would get him talking, she thought.  "Edmund, I have something," she said while lowering her eyes to meet his, "to tell you."

"Paige, I have something to talk to you about, also." Edmund's gaze fell and looked at all the uninterested bystanders around the couple. "Please let me go first."

Paige smiled back in submission. She wanted to hear what he was going to say, maybe ask.  Hope was swelling up inside her.  They had been together for over three years now and this being Valentine's Day and all.  That was a day when people got engaged, made plans for the future.  Maybe that was going to happen.

Please let it happen, she prayed.

"Paige..."

"Yes?"  her anxious voice betraying her.

"...I don't know how to say this."

She nodded.  Butterflies were fluttering around in her stomach and she swallowed to keep the excitement at bay.

"But I think that we need to take a break, see other people...." He continued with all of these explanations, but after he said those first few words, Paige lost interest.

Her mind was having a dialogue with itself.  Going over each and every word, dissecting them-each and every syllable in slow motion.

She was infuriated.  Words were coming forth like poison and she spewed them towards him.  She was pregnant with his child and he invited her to this restaurant, just so Paige would not make a scene.  Anger was building inside of her.  She stood up and slapped him across the face before making a not so graceful exit.

Running across the parking lot proved to be quite the undertaking.  Tears were streaming down her face, making it difficult to navigate the ground.  She slipped twice and held onto a nearby car's side mirror for support.

Once she found the safety of the confines of her car, she sat and stared out the windshield at nothing.  Somehow all of it, that whole evening felt unreal, foreign to her.  Only when Edmund exited the restaurant and walked over to an unfamiliar car, did Paige take notice.  She watched as Edmund went inside the car and leaned over to kiss the  person in the passenger seat.

With everything that happened, she never told him her news.  He left without finding out that he was going to be a father. Serves him right, she thought.

Paige scrunched down in her seat, as Edmund drove by.  She wanted to see who this new mystery person was.  Paige looked over the steering wheel expecting to see the other woman.

Wait! It was a man...

Disbelief was running through her rampant. Paige would not believe what she had just seen.  Edmund had broken up with her to be with Mark.

Who happened to be Paige's brother.