My Complications With Life and Love

My name is Charity Alessa Lyona. I am 22 years old. I have chestnut brown hair with light beachy my waves and bright green eyes. I’m five foot five inches, one hundred and ten pounds and the most passionate person about music friends have ever seen. I currently go to college at Manhattan School of Music. I work at Bakers Diner as a day job and have gigs every other with a band me and a couple of friends made in High School. Linc is our drummer, Damon is our bass, and Cain is the lead guitar and backup vocals. I am the lead singer and play guitar occasionally. I live in a small apartment in New York City. I am heartbroken after spending three years putting myself back together after a serious breakup. My boyfriend, James O’Shea, left me after four serious years of dating and a lifetime of fun as best friends. I was split in two after that day. I spent a long few months going over decisions in my head. Should I go after him and lose everything I’ve work so hard for, or keep the band gong in hope of starting a career and lose him forever. I finally ended up choosing the band but I always wondered….. Did I make the right choice?

Chapter one

?“Char, your order’s up!” Amelia yelled from across the diner. After a long day I just wanted it to end. The day started off with a call from Linc, the drummer for our band, he said he was sick and couldn’t do the gig tonight. We were both mortified because we were really looking forward to it. We hadn’t had a gig in a while, since we’ve all been busy with college and jobs. We started this band in high school in hopes it would land us some nice music jobs. People loved us while we played in High School, so we kept the band going. We were all headed to New York anyway to go to college.
?As the day went on, I told the others about our problem. Cain and Damon weren’t particularly happy, but they knew they couldn’t do anything about it, so they just nodded and said ok. After long class periods at school, I ended up at my day job as a waitress at Bakers Diner, which is surprisingly not too bad of a job. My boss, Amelia, is like a sister to me. She helped me out greatly when I first came to New York. I came here with nothing and she helped me get on my feet and start a life here by giving me the job at the diner. “Hey, you ok?” I came back to reality when I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around to a worried face. “Yeah, it’s just been a stressful day. Our drummer can’t play tonight. I got a call from him this morning.” “Oh, I’m sorry. Was it an important one?” “Yes. It was supposed to be a really great paying gig.” I walked over to the counter to pick up my order. “But no need to be upset over something I can’t change, right?” I walked away before she could answer and took the order to a group of high school looking teenagers. They looked like they were having a good time. It wasn’t that long ago that I was that carefree teen; hanging out in diners on Saturdays, partying all night then spending Sunday trying to corporate with my parents and siblings. I politely gave them their meals and asked if there was anything they needed and then was on my way to clean up another table. I heard the door open and knew that a group of men had entered the diner from the sound of their heavy footsteps on the wood floor. When I happened to look up at them I stopped dead in my tracks. There was someone I thought I’d never see again. It was James, my best friend from the time I could walk and talk. I almost didn’t recognize him at first. He was always handsome to me, but now, with some years on him, he looked even better than before. He was wearing this snug white t-shirt that left nothing to imagine with what was underneath and a pair of loose tan-camo khaki shorts. His dirty blonde hair was just shy of a buzz cut. It made him look different, in a good way. I was always use to his loose wavy hair that he had in high school. Hid bright blue-silver eyes are about the only thing that hasn’t changed. Staring like a dumbstruck I snapped out of my trance and took everything to the kitchen, hoping he couldn’t see me. I stopped Amelia before she walked back out to the diner. “Can I go home? Please?” She looked at me strangely, “Why?” “Because I’m not feeling well and I’ve got to practice a new song for my … uh ... solo in class next week.” I knew she could tell I was lying but I didn’t care at the moment. “Ok… but you have one more table to do before you can leave.” Wanting to get out of there fast I agreed before she could finish her sentence and grabbed a notepad and walked out the door. As soon as I walked out his gazed slipped to mine.

Chapter 2

?I finally tore my gaze from his to look and see what table I had. Shit. I was assigned the exact table he was sitting at with his buddies. I walked as slowly as I could, looking for any excuse not to go to the table. When I came up to it, I tried to clear my head, and I asked in a perky voice, “Hi my name is Charity; I will be your server this afternoon. Can I get you anything to drink?” After jotting down his friends orders, I dared to look him in the eyes to get his. All the memories of us came flooding back when I met his eyes. The years of fun, the years we told each other we loved one another, and the day he left me to go live his dreams. I didn’t hear him say his order, so like a dumbass I asked, “I’m sorry, what was that?” I looked at my pad as he again told me “I said can I have a Samuel Adams Oktoberfest?” “Sure, coming right up.” I walked back to the kitchen, gave the cook the order, and went on a search to find Amelia. “I need to leave now, please. Can you take my table?” she looked at me quizzically. “I’m not feeling well, ok? Please?” “Fine, but be here bright and early tomorrow morning, ok?” “Yup” I started to walk toward the door when she said, “And Char, I expect an explanation on what the hell is going on tomorrow morning.” “I promise its nothing. Don’t worry.” She didn’t say anything further, so I grabbed my coat and wallet and walked out of the kitchen. I walked through the diner and avoided his gaze. I knew he saw me because I could feel the weight of his gaze on my back. I kept walking, quicker by the second. I heard a chair scrap against the wood floor but didn’t look back. Praying to god it wasn’t him. I walked out of the diner and started to my 1980 dodge challenger. I heard the bell on the door of the diner chime as it was being opened just as I got to my car and was fumbling around for my keys. “Charity,” I heard his deep voice say from a short distance behind me, “Why are you running?” I closed my eyes and leaned ever so slightly against my car, trying to find my voice and suppress the emotions I was feeling from coming out in my voice, “I’m not.” “Oh. Really? Sure as hell looks like it to me. What are you doing in New York?” I could hear him getting closer with every word he spoke. I refused to turn around, for the fear that I may breakdown in tears. “The band stayed together after high school and we came here. We were all heading here for college anyway.” There was a long silence. After a while, I mustered up the guts to turn around. He was standing a lot closer than what I thought he was. My eyes stayed on his chest. I couldn’t look in his eyes because I feared I would see emotions that I didn’t want to see. He sighed after a few minutes, “I honestly can’t believe you’re here. After all these years I’ve been looking for you.”

Chapter 3

My gaze snapped straight to his, “Wait, what? You’ve looked for me?” He looked taken back that I thought he hadn’t. “Of course I have! Do you think I would leave you without another word when I loved you like I did? And still do?” This shocked me but my voice took a sadder note laced with a bit of anger, “But you did leave me, remember?” “How could I forget? It was the worst few months of my life after it happened.” “So then why did you?” He looked a little nervous by telling me this, “I got called away.” I was confused, “Called away? Called away by whom?” He looked to the ground when he answered, “The military.” It was my turn to be taken back. He had never told me he was enrolled in the military. “How come you never told me?” He looked into my eyes and his voice had a sudden anger tone to it, “Because I didn’t want you to be one of those girlfriends that was sitting at home worrying over whether I was going to be coming back alive or dead in a coffin,” his voice softened, “ but I still loved you. It broke my heart to leave you like that.” I stared at him in disbelief. “Do you know how broken I was! For months I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t go anywhere. I was numb and an emotional wreak, and all because you were worried about me worrying over you? I loved you like I’ve never loved anyone before!” Don’t cry, damn it! Don’t cry. I was trying to fight the emotions that wanted to escape but it was all too much seeing him here. A tear escaped and slid ever so slowly down my cheek. “Hey, I’m sorry. I was looking out for us both.” His hand came up to my face to wipe the tear away. Before I could turn away his finger slid carefully against the skin of my cheek. I snapped. The years of bottled up tears came flooding down. Both of his hands came up to caressed face and he gazed into my eyes. I looked into his eyes, and then glanced down at his lips, then back to his eyes again. Before words could leave my mouth his lips covered mine.
It was the greatest sensation of my life. I’ve wanted this for so long. I remember all too clearly how his kisses felt before, but this kiss had a lot more feeling to it than those ever did, and I loved it. This kiss had years of pent up energy and told me things that words couldn’t. It showed me how much he missed me, how much he wished he could’ve found me and done this sooner. I tried as hard as I could to mirror those emotions because they were exactly what I was feeling as well. My hands slip from their resting place on his chest to being clasped around his neck. His hands, that were firmly around my waist, now traveled down to rest on my hips and I felt the cold metal of the car on my back as he rested me against it. He broke the kiss only to trail light kisses down my neck. “You know I still love you.” He whispered at the sweet spot where my neck and shoulder met. He brought his head up and rested his head on my forehead on mine. His usual bright blue eyes now had a heat that I expected mirrored my own. “And I love you. I never stopped even after you left.” We stood there, wrapped in a close embrace for long time. After a while, we finally moved a few inches apart, but kept our hands on each other. “Let me take you home.” He said and his gaze told me he meant it, really meant it. “Ok.” I said. He looked a little weary; like he had something else he had to say. “What?” “I want to tell you something.” “Ok?” “You remember when you were getting ready to turn eight-teen and I told you a couple of months before I had some news?” I looked at him quizzically. “Yeah, that was right before you left.” He looked a little sheepish mixed with embarrassment. “Yeah. Did you ever wonder what that news was?” “Yes, every day. But after you left I figured that’s what it was.” He looked down at the ground as he spoke his next sentence. “Well…um. That wasn’t exactly the news I was expecting to give that night. That was the night I was going to ask you to marry me.”

Chapter 4

I looked at him with big, shocked eyes. He looked up, when I didn’t reply to him instantly. He waited as patiently as he could for me to say something. I grinned at him with a sexy smile and wrapped my arms around his neck, “And you know what my answer would have been.” He looked at me with curious eyes and wrapped his arms securely around my waist, “And what would that be?” I bit my bottom lip and raised myself on my tiptoes so I could whisper my answer in his ear, “Yes.” He picked me up suddenly and spun me around, grinning like a fool. He took me by surprise, so I squeaked and then giggled. I put my legs around his waist and kissed with all the passion in the world. We stayed like that for what seemed like forever, but really was only twenty minutes. We detangled ourselves from each other and as he set me on my feet he said, “Now, let me take you home for real.” After that I knew, I got the second chance I wanted.





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