March 30th, 1999
“…I love you”
Here’s the thing, if Leo actually loved her, he wouldn’t have lied to her for the entirety of the relationship. That wasn’t love… no matter how Leo phrased it… it just… wasn’t. That was the exact thought replaying in her mind as she looked out the window - sitting in the passenger seat of her ex’s car. Adelaide found herself hugging her legs… unable to even look at him. Honestly, she hated even looking at the sheer reflection of herself in the window glass. So instead, she just tried to phase it all out… which was a little difficult being in proximity to… him.
“I just want to talk to you, Addie”
“but I don’t want to talk to you, Leo. I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“Addie…”
“Just bloody drive me home, please…”
“Just talk to me. Yell at me, I don’t fcking care I just… I want something, anything from you. You can’t just keep running away from this.”
“Watch me.”
With those words, Addie felt the car turn off the main road. Moving her eyes up, she found Leo pulling over to the side of the road immediately putting the emergency blinkers on. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Leo?”
“You won’t talk to me? Well, I’m not going to drive then.”
“Then move the fck over, Leo. I’ll drive.”
DID HE JUST LAUGH? Addie definitely heard her ex laugh at those words. Excuse him? “You’re not driving.'”
“And why bloody not?”
“We both know why, Addie… not to mention, you’re drunk.'”
“I’m not drunk… and I’m a great driver.” Addie could feel her cheeks getting red at this… stupid interrogation. Or perhaps they were red due to the alcohol she had earlier but that was irrelevant. She… totally wasn’t drunk… maybe tipsy… but not drunk.
“'Right… because crashing the car last time and driving in a fcking snow storm shows how good of a driver you are.”
This time, a laugh left Addie’s lips as she crossed her arms across her chest. “Do I have to remind you that I wouldn’t have been on that fcking road if your game didn’t threaten my brother?”
“'Addie… I…that wasn’t…”
“That shut you up, didn’t it? Now please, drive me home before I get out of this car and walk.”
“'Adelaide…”
“Drive the fcking car, Leo. And then after tonight, we’ll never have to fcking deal with each other ever again.”
And he did… apparently her comment at least shut him the hell up for a bit and once again, she found herself looking out the window as he started driving the car.
He did try to talk to her again - once they were outside her home but Adelaide just ignored him and did the most unladylike thing she knew how to: put a middle finger up as she walked inside her house… that was, until the door closed and she broke down crying on her front door. At the end of the day… she missed him… even if she wouldn’t tell him that to his face. Maybe that’s exactly why she needed to leave… because the longer she stayed… the worse all of this became. Distance would at least… keep her sane?
It was with that thought that she found herself getting up off the floor and walking to her room with a new sense of purpose. Grabbing a back, she packed only the essentials before going to her brother’s room and writing a note that she was flying back home. He… apparently had ended up going to that afterparty, but what he said was right. She needed to reevaluate after the party, and honestly, this was her reevaluation: she needed to leave.
Asking the butler to fetch the driver and sending word to the jet that she was coming, it was within an hour of her returning from the god awful dance that she was already in another car ready to go home. She did feel her heart tug looking at her surroundings, but she knew there was no going back now.
“Miss Pierce, we’re so sorry for the wait. Your jet is currently situated overseas and we’ve called for it, but because of the short notice, it’ll be a 10 hour wait. We do have a few other option available, however, we can get you off on first class on the next flight in 6 hours, or we do have a private jet here on the ready that the owner is not using. We sent a message of a jet exchange for a few hours and they’ve already agreed - so your jet will be used at their convince while you use theirs and if they don’t end up using it, we’ll just charge your card for the fuel used. Which option sounds the most fitting?”
“Which option will get me out of here the fastest?”
“With the exchange, we can get you on the plane and out of here in half an hour.”
“Then lets just bloody do that, please.”
“Alright - I’ll call someone to escort you to the plane in about 10-15 minutes while they bring the plane over. Feel free to sit in the meanwhile.”
Yep… this was it. Adelaide Parker was done with Beryl. She had changed out of her prom dress, so at least she was comfortable in that regard… though… comfort wasn’t going to exactly help since sleeping on planes was something that she would never be able to do. No, rather, Addie would probably be up the entire time with her heart racing at every little tumble: god she hated planes.
“Miss Parker?”
Addie looked up to meet a flight attendant who sent her a smile. “I’ll be escorting you to the plane today. May I take your bag?”
It’s okay Addie, take deep breaths. Her mind was working on overdrive as she went up the stairs to the lounge of the plane. Addie didn’t even walk up the aisles - nor did she take time to appreciate the differences in this plane as compared to her own as most people likely would have. Instead, Adelaide Parker took the first seat she saw, and immediately strapped herself in before closing her eyes and holding on tightly to the handle of the seat. Sending a mental sorry for the nail marks to whoever owned this plane, Addie tried bringing her heart rate down. Fck fck fck… this huge piece of mental would be flying thousands of feet in the air in a few seconds… oh fck. “Ma’am would you like champagne?”
“No… can we just… start this whole… flying process already?” Addie mumbled, keeping her eyes closed as she responded to the attendant.
“This is your captain for today’s flight. Please settle into your seats and put on your seatbelts. The cabin doors are now closed and we’ll be departing in just a few minutes.”
“Oh fcking…sht… fck.” Addie cursed, pressing down harder onto the arm rests… god she wished her brother was there. He could at least distract her for a little while… or make fun of her which distracted her. Being alone on a flight just made it… worse. “Take deep breaths, it’ll be okay”
Wait.
Slowly opening her eyes for the first time since she entered the plane, what Adelaide had never imagined meeting her sight ever again was the one thing she saw: Leonardo Azure sitting next to her.
“How… how the… you’re not supposed to be here.”
“You’re not supposed to be here either.”
“Don’t… patronize me Leo, what the fck are you doing here?”
“I’m here to talk to you, since clearly I can’t have a conversation with you any other way.”
“I thought I made it clear I didn’t want to bloody talk to you.”
“No, you made it clear that you wanted to hear no one’s point of view except your own”
“Oh go fck yourself. Fck you, fck your stupid game, and fck the fact that I actually thought I loved you.”
“Well if you would just give me a fcking chance to speak”
“WHY THE ACTUAL HELL WOULD I, LEO? How the hell did you even get on this flight? It’s a priva-… it’s your plane isn’t it? Is this just another one of your fcking manipulations?”
“Oh stop it, Addie, fcking hell.”
“Stop what? Calling it like I see it? What the fck would you call this?”
“Giving you what you want. You wanted to leave tonight? Fine - I made it easy for you.”
“I didn’t need you to make it easy for me, Leo. I didn’t ever need you to make it fcking easy on me. I just wanted you to tell me the truth and I realized our entire relationship was a lie. You have such a bloody complex , you know that? I lied to you once about being engaged and I felt like fcking sh!t for weeks because I cared about you. When you found out, I promised you I would never fcking lie again but clearly that was one sided.”
“It wasn’t one sided, Addie.”
“Stop calling me that”
“God listen to me Adelaide. It wasn’t one sided. I didn’t lie to you, I just didn’t see how bringing that up was relevant to our relationship.”
“You didn’t see how bringing up the fact that the game that’s been manipulating me and my friends was run by you? The game that threatened my fcking brother was run by you?”
“I didn’t know they did that, Addie. I was protecting you from it… that message wasn’t approved by me and I fired the assh0le who sent it.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better? Can you just please get off this fcking plane before it takes off?”
“Addie…”
“God please stop talking down to me, I honestly am tired of fcking hearing it, Leo”
“… Addie”
“I ask one fcking thing and you can’t even do tha-”
“Maybe just listen for a second then? We’re already in the air, Adelaide.”
Adelaide had been so… entranced with… yelling at her ex that she hadn’t even realized that the two had taken off. Not only taken off, but were currently… in the… air. Oh god… oh god no she needed to prepare for this. SHE WASN’T MENTALLY PREPARED TO BE IN THE AIR RIGHT NOW. Addie felt her hand instinctively holding Leo’s as she closed her eyes and tightly held his hand. “Oh fck oh fck oh fck…fck…sht…oh my god.” she mumbled, likely crushing his hand as she said those words. She felt Leo’s other hand on her cheek, turning her to face him. “Hey…hey it’s okay. Keep telling me how I’m a bastard.”
A soft… worried laugh left Addie’s lips - her mind still on the fact that they were thousands of feet in the air as she forced her eyes to meet his. “I just… wanted the truth Leo.” her voice was softer this time, no longer having the energy to fight as her hand remained clutched in his.
“I’m sorry, Addie. I’m really sorry. I didn’t… I wanted to protect you… and I realize now that I could have done that in a better way.”
“You hurt me.”
“I know.”
“I miss you.” her voice cracked slightly as silent tears fell down her eyes and she felt him put his arms around her body.
“I miss you too.”
What was she supposed to do now? She was…so bloody mad at the man sitting beside her… but god she missed him so much. There was a comfort in being in his arms that she simply couldn’t put to words.
“What am I supposed to do now?”
“Tell me what I can do to fix this.”
“I don’t… I don’t know.”
“Tell me how much you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, Leo.”
“Then let’s spend this 10 hour flight fixing this because I love you and I’m not ready to lose you.”
“I…I love you too.”
And she did… as mad as she was at Leo… Adelaide Parker wasn’t ready to lose him yet either. And, so for the rest of the flight, she found him distracting her - talking about everything from how he missed her, to what they could do next time, to kissing her. Maybe it would take time to fully forgive him for… this incident… but it was something they needed to work through together… without her running away.
The “Something Old” - 2031 - Part 6 (2/2)
ALRIGHT SHE WAS WEARING CLOTHES NOW. YOU HAPPY DORI? Well, in retrospect, was he happy? One would expect a fiance who was getting ready for his wedding to want the opposite - aka their fiance clotheless but noooo. He just had to tell her to put her clothes on before storming into her mother’s room. Was this divorce territory? MAYBE. 
Yeah yeah… Jessica was joking with herself to cut the tension, what’s new? But what? SHE WAS A LITTLE FRAZZELED LEARNING THAT HER MOTHER DATED HER EX’S FATHER WHEN THEY WERE TEENS. It was weird okay. With her clothes on, Jessica did just what she had told Dorian she would - she walked right into her mother’s room after knocking VERY loudly. Look, she wasn’t looking to get traumatized if her mom was sleeping with her dad okay. Good news. - her mom was wearing clothes so that wasn’t the issue.
“Darling what happened. Are you okay? Is my granddaughter okay? You’re not getting cold feet are you? It happens but we can talk…”
Jessica looked at her mother who groggily moved up from the bed. Her dad was next to her mom, and he was also moving up to look at their daughter who had… kind of stormed into their room.
“I’m fine, Shay’s fine, I’m not getting cold feet, trust me. I just want… no I need… to know if you dated my ex’s dad.”
And with those words, Jessica placed the journal she’d been… secretly reading in front of her mother who’s eyes widened seeing the old book. “Mum did you… date Leonardo Azure… as in Blue Royalty Leonardo Azure?”
“She did… and he used to be my best friend…”
Jessica moved her eyes away from her mother towards her father who was now alert and sitting next to her mom.
AND HE USED TO BE HER DAD’S BEST FRIEND?
Excuse me?