It Wasn't Meant To Be

Gusty winds blew leaves down the road. Samantha walked alongside the road with her hands stuffed in her pockets and tears in her eyes. The wind was nipping at her skin on that cold winter night.

She had just had a huge fight with her husband and now she was completely alone in the streets of Caribou, Maine. She knew that if she wanted to walk out with her dignity intact, she was walking out for good.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, the incident was fresh on her mind. When she walked in to the hotel room, she heard him on the phone. He was so busy talking he didn’t notice her at all. She went to say something but then a part of his conversation caught her attention. “You know you’re the one I love, I don’t love Sam anymore.” The words hit her like a bucket of ice-cold water and she pressed herself against the wall that was part of the small hall leading to the dimly lit bedroom. “Don’t be like that, you know I can’t just get up and divorce her without telling her why.”
“I just can’t do that, now I have to go. Sam is going to come in any minute now. I love you,” said David.
Sam finally grasped the entire situation and turned on the lights.
She forced herself not to cry. ‘Not now’ she kept repeating to herself. With her chin up and emotions masked she asked as if nothing was wrong, “Who was that?”
“Oh no one. Just a call from work,” David replied not looking her in the eyes.
“Since when do you say ‘I love you’ to people from work?” she asked with her words dripping with venom. She was going to be angry with this; she had every right to be.
David looked up from whatever it was he was doing to keep himself from not looking into her eyes and with surprise across his face he said, “Sammy, I can explain.”
“No, just tell me the truth for once,” she said trying to keep a straight face and the emotions out of her voice. “Are you cheating on me?” she asked.
“It’s not like that, just listen to me,” David tried to say.
“Yes? Or No? I don’t want to hear anymore lies from you,” she said with her teeth clenched.
“Yes.”
That was enough to break her. But she wouldn’t let him have that advantage. “How long?” she asked.
“Just listen to me,” David started pleading.
“Tell. Me. How. Long,” Sam said with anger laced to her every word.
“From when we got engaged.”
Now that was something she couldn’t bear. She got that people cheated on each other in relationships. It wasn’t right, but it was understandable. But you don’t get married to someone if you love someone else.
She walked up to him, whispered the words, “Go to hell,” and walked out of that hotel room. Walked out of the life she dreamed of, the life she could have had with David.

She picked up her pace in the cold winter night and wiped her tears out faster. But they refused to stop. She saw a café up ahead. And in that dark, gusty, freezing weather, the café seemed like she had been given food after having been made to starve for days on end. She ran up to the door and opened it, escorting herself to a table in the back. She used some tissues to wipe her face clean and she straightened up and told herself to be strong. A waiter came up to her and she ordered a warm cappuccino. When she got her order she wrapped her frostbite affected hands around it and downed the warm drink. It made her feel much better. Now she had to think what she was going to do next.
She didn’t want to run back to her parents, she didn’t want to run back home every time she faced problems. And she didn’t want to go traveling; it seemed like a waste of money to go traveling alone, when she was depressed. She’d go around the world when she was happy and in love, she thought to herself with a small smile. But the smile faded when she thought of David, the one she dreamed of going around the world with.
She made her promise herself she wasn’t going to be hung up over some guy that was stupid enough to cheat on her, she was going to start fresh. Go somewhere new, and do all the things she wanted to but couldn’t.
He was a jerk, a jerk that went for pebbles when he could have had a diamond.
‘No, no don’t say that. People fall in love with each other because they just do. It wasn’t meant to be with us,’ she reprimanded herself.
For what it was worth, he wasn’t going to be the one to break her or make her hurt like that ever again. She was going to be strong. No one was going to do that to her ever again. And with that last thought, she began thinking about a new life, a new beginning.