all the wrong reasons Episode 22

🌸 ALL THE WRONG REASONS🌸
🌹 EPISODE TWENTY-TWO🌹

When Adrienne arrived at Yuan’s ap@rtment, her friends
knew instantly that something was wrong.
“What?” Yuan asked. “Did he break your heart? Was
he cheating on you? Where is he? I will kill him!”
Adrienne sat on the couch silently. She stared into
space, still unable to recover from her shock. How could this
happen to her? A few hours ago, she was happy. She was
floating on air.
But that seemed so far away as she sat with her heart
broken like shattered glas-s. She didn’t know how she would
be able to recover from it. Her world had fallen ap@rt.
“Adrienne, what is wrong?” Jill asked, taking her hands
in hers and gently squee-zing them.
She stared at them for a long time.
“plea-se don’t tell me you caught him cheating on
you?”
Adrienne shook her head. “He wasn’t cheating on
me.”
“Then why are you like this?”
She took a de-ep breath. “Apparently… Justin was sort
of… cheating with me.”
“What?”
“I…” She took a de-ep breath. “I shared the elevator
with his parents. They didn’t know me. They haven’t met
me. But his Mom was so upset, she couldn’t help talking
about her…dilemma with her son.” Pain c@m£ rushing to her
again. “She said…that Justin has this obligation to the
family. An arrangement that goes way back when he was
still very young.”
“What is it?”
“They… arranged for him… to be married to some…
rich heiress,” she stammered and then tears rolled down her
cheeks.
“Oh my God!” Yuan and Jill breathed together.
It took a moment for her friends to recover.
“Maybe…maybe it’s not his parents. How could you
know? You haven’t met them.”
“I saw a picture of them,” Adrienne replied. “And his
father looks exactly like him. There’s no mistake about it.
They mentioned his name. So I’m pretty sure it’s them.”
“Have you spoken to him?”
Adrienne shook her head. “Not yet. I just…want to
organize my thoughts first.”
“He never mentioned this to you?”
“Never. But there were moments in the past when he
would look worried or sad when he remembered something.
He mentioned a family obligation that he forgot about. He
didn’t say what it was. He was always changing the t©pic
after that. I’m pretty sure this was it.”
“But maybe…maybe he doesn’t want to do it.”
Adrienne remembered Justin say, ‘It’s too late. I don’t
want to do it anymore.’
“Okay, you said they agreed on this a long time ago.
Maybe because you c@m£ along…Justin wouldn’t want to go
throu-gh with this anymore. His parents wanted him to do it.
But did you hear him say that he would?”
Adrienne shook her head. “But his parents will
disinherit him if he defies them. And I know how much
Justin’s family means to him, guys.”
“But you mean something to him too.”
Adrienne took a de-ep breath. “He hasn’t told me he
loved me. But I know he loves his family more than
anything.”
“Just because he hasn’t told you doesn’t mean he
doesn’t,” Jill said. “Because we see him. And we know he is
de-eply in love with you.”
“But why didn’t he tell me about this?”
Yuan sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s trying to fix it.
So when he does tell you, there would be nothing for you to
worry about anymore.”
Adrienne wiped the tears from her face. Her friends
were right. Justin probably did want to fix it. That’s why he
went back to Chicago with his parents. He said he would
prepare his family first and then he would ask her to come
to Chicago with him. He wouldn’t say that if he still planned
on pushing his engagement to some other girl, right?
“Oh God! I hope he can convince his parents,” she
breathed. “Because I don’t want to let him choose, you
know. I won’t let him sacrifice his relationsh!pwith his
parents for me. I know what it’s like to live with a mother
that hates you and a father who couldn’t stand up for you. I
won’t let Justin have that life, guys. I love him too much for
that.”
“Sweetie… we’re sure you guys will be okay,” Jill said.
“Believe in Justin. He won’t hurt you. He will fight for you.”
“I really hope you’re right. I…I don’t wanna lose him.
It’s too soon.” Adrienne let out frustrated sigh. “God, can’t I
have like…a month’s peace?” she asked, looking up. “I
mean… Justin and I have been together officially for like a
week. And now this.”
“If he really loves you, he will fight for you. Maybe he
went to see his parents this weekend to call off his
engagement with this bit-ch.”
“No wonder Justin was non-committal before. Maybe
this was the reason why he never did relationsh!ps. He
couldn’t commit because…he was alre-ady committed to
someb©dy else. And the other girls were all like flings. To
pas-s the time. To have some fun before he finally serves life
imprisonment with some bit-ch who earned the right to be
his fiancée just by being born.” Adrienne said, thinking out
loud.
“But you weren’t just some pastime, Adrienne. He got
serious with you.”
“Maybe he never meant to, but he couldn’t help it,” Jill
suggested.
Adrienne sighed. “I can’t hold him back from his destiny. I
can’t make him leave his family. He was a twin, you know?
His brother died at birth. He’s the only one his parents got.”
Jill and Yuan smiled at her apologetically.
“Just wait. I’m sure he’ll fix this.” Yuan said.
“God, I hope he does. And soon! Because I nee-d some
strength to face my parents.”
“Why? What happened?”
“My parents called me. Apparently, news of Troy’s
black eye reached them alre-ady. My Mom is pissed with me.
Kim failed to mention to them that I found her on t©p of
Troy, m0@n ing her lungs out!”
“Of course. Whoever makes it to your parents first
gets to throw the first stone.” Jill rolled her eyes. “Ooohh! I
want to poke her eyes out!”
“It doesn’t matter whether they cheated on me. I
cheated on Troy, too. And I was going to break up with Troy
even before I found out. This was doomed to happen. My
best bet is for my parents to un-derstand that for once, I’m
doing something I want. Being with the person I love. And
not just to plea-se them.”
“Any parent should un-derstand that!” Yuan gro-an ed.
“Not my Mom. Apparently, she was doing me a favor
for pushing me to d@t£ Troy. She said, I’d never do good in
life. My best chance was to marry someb©dy successful.
How pathetic did she think I was?”
“I wanna bit-ch-sl@p your Mom sometimes!” Yuan said.
“I’m sorry. But I really don’t get how mean she is to you!
Like you didn’t come from her! How could she demean you
like this?”
“And there’s nothing to demean! She’s got a smart,
beautiful daughter whose only wish is to plea-se her! What more could she ask for?” Jill said.
“Well, now at least you can tell her that her choice
wasn’t good enough for you,” Yuan added. “You managed to
snag one of the riche-st bachelors in the country. Eat that
Kimberly!”
“It doesn’t matter. Justin didn’t have to be rich. I’d still
fall in love with him. Remember, when I did fall for him, we
were just having d@t£s in our ap@rtments. We ba-rely went
out. I never got first-hand experience of knowing how rich
he really was. We kept things low-key… quiet and simple.
And I still fell in love with him.”
“But still, it must have been quite a shock for
Kimberly!” Yuan as-serted. “I wonder how she reacted when
she first realized who you’re d@t!ngnow. And how Troy felt
when he found out who he lost you to.”
“Yeah! Justin freaking Adams!” Jill said cheerily.
“Must have been quite a shock for them,” Yuan
continued. “Unfortunately, they weren’t shocked enough to
have a heart attack. That would have been lovely!”
“Seriously, guys! I should be the one wishing them
dead, not you. Whatever happens between Kim and me,
she’s still my sister. She’s still family.”
“Tell that to her. She doesn’t seem to know!” Yuan
rolled his eyes.
“So you still nee-d to go to Boston?”
Adrienne nodded. “Yes. And I was hoping Justin would
come with me.”
“He would,” Yuan said confidently. “He’s a decent guy.
He won’t leave you in the air.”
“And not for some bit-ch who’s only connection with
him is a business tie-up,” Jill added.
Adrienne buried her face in her hands and prevented
herself from crying. “Oh, God, I hope you guys are right.”
That night, Adrienne decided to spend the night in
Justin’s ap@rtment, instead of hers. Justin had given her keys
to his ap@rtment they moment they got back from the resort. It was the first time she used her key without him
actually being in the place.
She wanted to feel close to him. She la-id down on his
be-d, the be-d they usually spend their nights in. She hvgged
his pillows. They still smelled faintly of his aftershave.
She fli-pped her phone and dialed his number.
“Honey,” he greeted her after one ring.
His voice sounded so sweet to her and she
immediately felt like crying. She realized just how much she
loved him and wanted to keep him forever.
She took a de-ep breath. “I miss you,” she whispered.
She tried to keep her voice steady. She didn’t want to let
him know that something was up. She didn’t want to tell
him yet that she knew about his engagement. Especially not
over the phone.
It took him a moment to respond. “I hate being away
from you,” he responded. “If I didn’t have… some things to
fix here, I wouldn’t have gone at all.”
“Yes. I wish you were here, too.”
“Where are you?”
She sighed. “In your be-d.”
He paused for a long while. Then he said, “If that’s
your way of ma-king me suffer even more, you’re
succeeding.”
She giggled. “I’ve missed you. I thought if I spend the
night in your be-d, I’d still somehow feel like you’re just here
next to me.”
“I’d come back right now, if I could.”
“It’s okay. We’ll see each other on Monday.”
“Until then, it will be torturous.”
They both fell quiet for a couple of seconds… just
feeling each other’s pres£nce, no matter how far they were
from each other.
Then finally, Adrienne said, “Good night, Justin.”
“Good night, honey,” Justin said soberly. “I’ll be
ma-king love to you… in my dreams.”
When Adrienne hung up the phone, she hvgged his
pillow and let all the tears fall.

Tbc