𝑀𝓎 𝑀𝒶𝓃#1~When Love Lasts
Chapter 41

The next few weeks were rough between the doctor visits, throat therapy and Cedric being a little too much. He was always in my face when we went somewhere, reminding me to chew my food when we went to eat dinner at his parents' house.

“Chew more babe,”

“Avery that bites too big,” he would scold.

“I told you, babe, you need to chew more,” he fussed while patting me on my back when a piece of fried shrimp got stuck in my throat.

“I'd be more careful if you would stop Cedric,” I complained, feeling embarrassed that he was treating me like a toddler in front of his parents.

“Bro, ease up,” Anna would try to defend me as she herself seen how her brother was acting, but he would just over talk her every time.

“Don't tell me how to take care of my girl, Anna,” he would growl and storm from the table.

At first, I thought it was sweet. I know he loves me, but he was treating me like a small child instead of someone who was his equal partner.

We went out to the Sleepy Sheep a few times over the weeks just to get us out of the house and for me to enjoy being alive with our friends.

He wouldn't even let me dance with Anna.

He was so scared I'd mess up something with my throat that he would drag me off the dance floor and scold me for putting myself in danger.

Danger.

From dancing.

I understood his worries, knew it was because he loved me he was acting this way, but I was feeling smothered. I needed to get back to living life, having fun and, yes, dancing on a barroom floor. I'm alive, yes I could have died and was very close to dying that night, but I made it. I pulled through.

I want to live. I would like to have fun. I want to be able to eat dinner without Cedric looking over my shoulder, making sure I was chewing good enough to swallow and not choke.

Again, I genuinely understand the way his acting, but when I have tried to tell him he needed to basically take a chill pill and calm down, he would just remind me he loves me.

I could have gone back to work two days ago, and since then, all he and I have been doing is fighting because he doesn't think I'm ready to go back to work.

My doctor cleared me, and it's not like my job is very dangerous. I'm sitting down on my ass all day with a phone glued to my ear.

“It's too soon,” he would say, and try to dismiss the conversation.

“It's not Cedric, the doctor cleared me days ago,” I'd argue, trying to make him understand I was ready to get back to work, that I needed to get back on that chair and help people.

“I don't care what the doctor says, Avery. You're my woman. I don't think it's time. You're still healing babe,” he would tell me, worry flashing through his eyes, making me feel bad. “I don't want anything to happen to you,”

I'd feel so awful that he was still worried about me I would just drop the subject for that day, thinking maybe it was too soon for Cedric to be okay with me out there in the world without him again.

I was ready to go back to work.

He wasn't ready for me to go back.

I don't feel like a woman in our relationship anymore. I feel like I'm someone he needs to take care of. We still haven't had sex. It's been weeks since I came home from the hospital, and the most I get is kissing.

I know he loves me, I know that, and I feel it. I just don't think it's the type of love we had before. For him, it's like he is obsessed with keeping me safe that he keeps forgetting to live our life with me.

I try talking to him about it. I try explaining to him I need him to act like he was before. To throw me on the bed, to bend me over and fuck me like an animal as he's done in the past and all I would get back in return during those conversations was I wasn't completely healed.

I'm not glass, and I told him just that before I stormed out of the living room and slammed the bedroom door.

Last night we argued about me going back to work again so badly that he ended up either falling asleep on the couch or sleeping on it on purpose.

Something needed to change.

I want to eat what I want and how I want to eat it.

I want to dance on the Sleepy Sheep bar floor.

I want to go back to work.

And I want to be fucked, damn it.

The next morning, I woke up to the sun shining brightly through our bedroom window and decided that today is the day I forced Cedric into calming it down with the toddler act. I'm a grown woman and I demand my boyfriend treat me that way.

I happily skipped to the dresser, knowing after today him and I will be happy again, and quickly put on a sexy teddy outfit to make sure he got my point.

It's dark red and lets all my woman parts that he has been avoiding show, the top stops right above my nipples and the bottom allows most of my ass cheeks to hang out.

My point being, I want to be fucked on the kitchen counter.

I head out of the bedroom towards the kitchen, wanting to start getting breakfast prepared before Cedric wakes up. Which isn't an easy thing to do because Cedric wakes up as soon as the sun rises.

I'm thinking pancakes with little bits of banana in the batter, he loved when I made my grandmother's a while back for him.

He said it was the best pancakes he ever tasted, ordered me with a look of terror on his face, and told me not to ever mention what he had just said to his mother, ever.

I turned the corner, smile on my face and stopped when I heard his voice in the kitchen, he was turning on my coffee pot and on the phone.

Fudge.

My plan was ruined, well, my plan for breakfast. I still have the sexy outfit on, so one half of my plan is still very much in action. I'll just have to wait for him to get off the phone.

I leaned my shoulder against the wall to wait for him to hang up, but then when I heard my name, I instantly knew he had been talking about me with whomever he was on the phone with. I peeked my head around the corner of the archway and listened.

“I just can't keep doing this,” he sighed, grabbed a coffee cup and placed it in front of the pot. “It's smothering and it's causing problems in our relationship,”

Problems in our relationship?

The only issue was him hovering around me like a fly all the time, every day. Hell, he hasn't even gone back to work in weeks to stay with me.

Which at first I very much appreciated, now not so much. I'd shove him out the door dressed in that sexy police uniform if I could.

“I have to take care of her,” he hissed into the phone before rubbing one hand down his face. “ It's my fault she got hurt, and I have to make sure she never gets hurt again,”

I leaned further into the room and saw the distressed and unhappy look on his face. My hearted starts pounding in my chest as I continue to listen.

“It's my responsibility, Conor,” he growled.

“No I can't do that. It's too soon. She isn't ready, she isn't fully healed. I'm going to have to stop this shit,” he spits and opened the fridge door. “Let me go. She should be up soon, and I need to make breakfast for her,”

“Bye bro,” Cedric says, hangs up the phone and tosses it onto the counter.

I quickly hide behind the wall, tears starting to run down my cheeks as I replay the conversation over and over inside my head.

“I can't do that,”

“It's too soon,”

“She isn't ready,”

“It's my responsibility Conor,”

“It's my responsibility,”

Is that the reason he is still with me? Because he feels like it's his responsibility? He said it's too soon, does he mean too soon to break up with me?

I knew my scar bothered me.

I don't want to be a responsibility to Cedric, nor do I want him to have to wait until I'm healed to end it. What we have had has been good, more than good. It's been amazing, while it lasted, and doing what I am going to do is going to hurt, but I don't want us to keep going on, only for us to resent the other when it's finally over. Tears continue to fall down my face as my heart breaks while I slowly head into the bedroom to pack a bag. I can't go back to my old home, too many memories maybe Anna would let me stay with her for a while.