Chapter 16: setting thing to rights, even if it hurts.
In a quiet clear voice Cherie asked, "What do you think his honest reaction would be?" Letting out a heart felt sigh Leif conceded the point. "So are you going to write him back?" "I don't know, I'm going to think about it, but first I need to do something. Thank you for coming so quickly." Leif smiled, "no problem! You got me out of having my picture taken by Colin Creevy!" Cherie giggled "well then I guess it's you who should be thanking me for the over abundance of drama in my life." Grateful to see an honest smile on his friends face Leif felt safe in escorting her down stairs now.
***
Reaching the hall way in front of the library Leif and Cherie were approached by a slightly jealous looking Blaise. "Where were you?" he asked in a quiet semi-protective tone. Steeling up her courage "I went for a walk I thought that it might help clear my head." "Well, did it?" "Yes as a matter of fact if gave me a little in sight into something. Can we talk alone for a minute? Good bye Leif I'll see you tomorrow."
Turning and walking away with an air of confidence totally fake Cherie tried to think of how she was going to explain this whole thing to Blaise. "So what do you want to talk about?" Blaise' now nervous voice came from behind her. Pausing, Cherie now felt yet another wave of guilt roll over her as she turned to see the pensive look in his eyes.
Taking a deep breath she began, "Blaise I really like you, you're a wonderful guy and a great boyfriend. But the only relationship I've ever had before was long distance and I just don't feel ready for…. This." Pensive turning into hurt, "Would you like me to tone it down a little?" letting out a mental sigh Cherie tried to think of a less cliché way of saying 'it's not you, it's me' to him. "I don't think that would help right now, I just need time and I don't think it's fair for you to wait. Please just let me have some time to figure things out. If you're still interested in a few months maybe by then I'll feel ready to try again, but for now… this is just more than I can take. I'm really sorry."
Fighting back self incriminating tears Cherie walked off leaving Blaise to pick up the pieces of his broken heart.
***
"Start from the beginning." Hermione said while she patted her friends back. Cherie had come to her a few minutes ago sobbing something about being a horrible person and ruining everything good in her life… and something about not deserving love. Taking a deep breath Cherie began, "Well, you know how I want to get married in the temple right?" Hermione nodded her head, having already had this explained to her by her friend. Cherie's family was all LDS and thus Cherie wanted to get married in one of those gorgeous castle like buildings that were the temples for her religion, Hermione didn't blame her, if she had the option of getting married in one of those she totally would!
"Well, about 10 months ago I started dating this guy Tyler, you know?" Hermione nodded "Well, I thought he and I were on the same page, date for a while get to know each other, he goes on his mission, I write to him, he comes back and maybe we get married. Bada big bada boom. Sounds great right? Especially after I'm head over heels in love with him." Hermione nodded, "ya that does sound great. What happened?"
"Me, that's what happened! I want to blame Tyler but I can't, not really! It was all MY plan not his, and even though I talked to him about it he never specifically told me that he wanted to go on his mission. We were having issues, not majior ones but I blew them out of proportion and we had a fight, it was probably only our second one ever but it definitely opened my eyes. He told me that he didn't think he even believed in the church, and that he didn't want to go on a mission. At the time I thought that he was just saying them to make me mad, but when I asked him about it later he couldn't honestly deny it. And that's where I screwed up, instead of being the nice sweet supportive girlfriend and trying to help him that way, I chose to be the nagging pushy missionary and try to force feed him the gospel rather than just letting him learn for himself. When all that did was get us into fights I decided that I couldn't be with him, seeing him making these choices was killing me. I still love him, I know what I did wrong and I know that I can stop myself from doing it again, but I also know that he hasn't changed. It was a miracle that my school was shut down and I was sent here. If not I would probably have ran straight back to him today whenI got this." Cherie then handed Hermione the letter which up until this point had been folded neatly in her pocket.
Hermione read the letter, and stared at her friend. "Oh Cherie!" "It's ok Hermione, I don't know what I'm going to do but I'm pretty sure it'll involve reminding him that he has a new girlfriend now and that he should work on transfering those feelings to her." "he has a new grilfriend? Already?" "yes, but in all honesty I think the poor girl is just a rebound girlfriend." "Oh, my…" Hermione shared a look and immediately fell into each others arms. Cherie hoping that her friend could protect her from her own stupid mistakes and Hermione praying that she could.