Runaway Groom's Regrets: Begging My Ex-Bride For Second Chance

Nathan instantly felt his ribs being forcibly pushed inside his gut. He balled inwardly, crunching the pain of the hit and grunting to bear the throbbing ache. Biting the inside of his cheek, he stood straight in a wobble, and then, while the short man was quite having a minor victory with himself, Nathan punched him in the face, driving him away to lose his balance. He didn’t stop there as he followed her to pull him up and blasted him against the graffiti wall.

The short man met his own demise in a flash as his body fell down on the ground, together with his other two hooligan friends. As his head dropped, the blood on his nose streamed down onto his philtrum.

Taking advantage of the situation, Nathan didn’t waste his time waiting for the group to rouse up. He ran to where Daphne was and helped the lady stand. He enveloped his arms to her back for support while Daphne reclined her shoulders on him.

“You okay?” Nathan’s eyebrow furrowed. The wrinkles and lines on his forehead were so clear that Daphne struggled to stop her chest from thudding erratically.

She didn’t reply to him as her gaze met the bruises on his face. There was a large swollen patch on the corner of his mouth. Narrowing her eyes and looking at him closely, Daphne suggested. “We’ve got to get you to the hospital, Nathan. Your lips are inflamed and your ribs might have a fracture.”

He wiped the blood from the corner of his lips. Ignoring it as though it was nothing, Nathan refused, “Nah, I’m fine. Don’t sweat about this.”

But Daphne replied adamantly, “No, you are hurt. We should go, and the hospital is just three blocks away from here.

“Daphne, we shouldn’t. I could just call our family physician tomorrow,” Nathan countered her.

“No. I’m taking you to the hospital, Nathan.” She snuck her dainty arms on his back for support and continued, “Where’s your car?”

Resigning with a sigh, he pointed two blocks away from their location. Daphne helped him walk as they headed to where his car was parked. After a couple of minutes of walking, she unlatched her arms to his back and then held her palms in front of Nathan.

“Where are the keys?” she asked him casually.

Nathan didn’t contest with her. He took out the keys in his pockets and gave them to her.

“Thanks.” Then, Daphne opened the door of his car.

As he was supported by Daphne, who was behind his back, he managed to get inside the car slowly.

________________________________________

Nathan felt uncomfortable with the wrinkle lines on her forehead while he was holding the side of his ribs. Gazing up at her face, she saw her chest rise in and out as she went to the driver's seat. When Daphne finally situated herself on it, Nathan watched her close the door and buckle her seat belt.

She turned on the ignition and took off to the nearby hospital. About a few minutes later, they went to the emergency room, where the doctors checked the condition of his bruises. Daphne waited beside him as he was examined by the medical team and brought out some tests on him.

The good thing was that after an hour of examination, he was fine and as fit as a fiddle. Daphne exhaled a deep breath, hunching her head down to bury it in her palms as she heard the news.

However, Nathan, who was beside her the entire time, just looked at her in curiosity as he studied her from head to toe like she was some kind of problem that he oddly couldn’t find a solution to.

Even more, he felt his heart galloped in a flat-out beat when he recognized her hand on the top of his while the nurse announced his medical results. The doctor said he was fine and luckily his ribs didn’t crack, but why did he feel like he had a sodding fever?

It disturbed Nathan so much that he thought he needed a large dose of Tylenol to cure him from this damn madness.

After settling for the medical expenses and medication fees, Nathan and Daphne exited the hospital. Holding the bag of medications in his hand, he couldn’t keep Daphne out of his thoughts.

Apparently, the woman had bugged her so much that the logical part of his brain was barely processing right now—that was if his mind still could process right after drinking more than the prescribed dose of Tylenol.

It seemed like even with the higher dosage of the medicine, his mysterious fever still didn't subside, since it became worse when the lady beside him was just an inch away from where he was.

By the time they got to the car, Nathan grabbed the keys from her. Daphne, whose eyes were as wide as a ladle, looked at him with an expression as though she were waiting for him to say something.

Because of this, Nathan appealed to her beckon and answered, “Let me drive the car. I’m quite fine, Daphne. Besides, you have done enough already to help me.”

Daphne swerved his remarks and said, “Okay, I’ll be going. Again, thanks for helping me, Nathan.”

Nathan turned to her with his eyebrows in a burrow as he noticed the lady going to the side of the road. “I told you I'll drop you off at your place.”

“And I'll tell you now that you don't have to. I can just grab a taxi from here.” She rejected his offer immediately, her eyes fixed on the road as she waved her arms to signal for a ride.

'Why is this goddamn woman so stubborn?' Nathan grunted inwardly before he heaved a deep sigh.

“Daphne, please don’t make this more complicated. I'll drive you to your place like what we have discussed before," he reiterated.

She just looked at him haughtily. "You're the one who insisted, not me, Nathan..."

He rubbed his palms on his scruff and added, “Look, if this is because of our fight a while ago, I’m really sorry. I was wrong to say that to you. Hell, you can even keep your job as Chuck’s tutor for a compromise.”

She dropped her arms to the side. Lifting her chin to meet his gaze, her eyebrow furrowed. “I can say the same thing to you, Nathan; but I've already made up my mind and I’m not interested in taking that job back.”

"Daphne!" Nathan’s jaw twitched.

He was about to grab her arms when suddenly the woman deliberately evaded him and ran toward the taxi nearby.

"Bye, Nathan! I hope you can find your nephew a tutor who is not as nosy bitch as I am!" She got inside the vehicle quickly without saying a word to him.

"God, you woman! That's not what I said!" He grunted, raising his chin up and taking a deep breath.

Dismayed by the lady’s seemingly uncaring gesture, he pulled his car door open and went inside as he yeeted the bag by the next seat.

Immediately, he started the engine running and drove off back to the place. Nathan couldn’t shut their fight out of his mind and kept gripping the steering wheel tightly as he drove to her apartment.

'That woman is getting on my nerves!'

He realized he should not have insisted on driving her by himself and could just instruct Isaac to do his job. Nonetheless, it was too late for him to wish for that scenario, as the lady had already decided to quit the job.

***

Sunday morning greeted Daphne with incessant badgering calls from her mother, Linda. And because of what had just happened lately between Nathan and her, she didn’t have a choice but to tell her mother the truth: that she was still on the job hunt. As she had expected, her mother groaned in disapproval and was constantly fiddling with restless words to her daughter.

As a result, Daphne tried looking for job vacancies throughout the weekend. To her success, by the time Monday arrived, she was invited to an interview at one of the elite schools in the city. In her opinion, she thought she did well in answering the interviewer’s questions and caught up with the principal’s interrogation. More so, Daphne knew she had decent credentials from her high GWA in college and enough certifications on her resume that it would suffice the job specifications required for the position.

Although she didn’t have that much experience teaching in schools and was urged to let her stay at home by Maverick all the time, Daphne had a few tutoring gigs with Tatiana’s socialite friend's kids to have some on-hand experience at the job.

If odds were on her side, then she hoped she could land a job at this prestigious school.

As she walked to the steep block of the school’s entrance, she treaded to the side of the main road and was about to hail a cab when she caught notice of a familiar shadow across the street. Getting a clear view of him, she saw a man dressed in an expensive suit heading toward her as he ran across the road while cars continued to pass by.

When Daphne realized it was the man she swore to never see again, she avoided him immediately, dashing away from his sight. However, he ran like a cheetah that he had already blocked her way to get out of him.

Annoyed by his presence, Daphne stuck her tongue on the side of her cheek. “Do you mind, please?!”

He still kept on standing in front of her, trying to barricade all openings to where Daphne could run off away from him.

“Come back home, Daphne.” He held her arms and squeezed them tightly. “I want you back, baby.”

For the very first time, Daphne was perplexed to see a downcast look on Maverick. The proud smirk and valiant eyes of the man she had known soon crumbled as a soft, pleading expression confronted her today. Was this the same man she had lived with? Or was this all an act just so he could have her back again?

'He's using his puppy-dog eyes to persuade me. Ugh, god, how did I fall for that?' Daphne groused to herself.

Daphne didn’t know and never wanted to know what it meant. In fact, she doesn’t give a fuck anymore about his whereabouts. “You won’t get that from me again, Maverick.”

Maverick heaved a deep sigh. His hands were splayed on his waist while he lifted the other to reach her hand. Pressing her palms softly, he begged, “I can pay your mother’s debt, Daphne! Or let you get a job in one of the finest schools here…just, please come back home, baby.”

'Bullshit, Maverick!' Daphne had none of his shit.

She threw his hand away from her and gave him a death-defying glare. “The moment you’ve ditched me on that altar, we’re already over, Maverick. Don’t get your hopes up because I won’t get back to you ever again! So please, for the love of God, quit pestering me!”

Maverick’s humble countenance vanished instantly. Huffing a large sigh, he chafed, “Come on, Daphne! I’m trying here!”

Daphne scoffed. “I don’t care, Maverick! I’m still not going back with a narcissistic guy like you, to your pathetic house, and especially to your horrendous mother!”

His genteel eyes snapped to a livid nightmare. He snatched her shoulders, pushing her against the bark of the tree behind him, and forcibly grasping her skin in constriction.

“Don’t you insult me or my mother like that?! You have no right to do that, bitch!” The edge of his mouth curved upward. “Mom is right. You’re just like your mother: a pathetic, gold-digger slut!”

“Get off of me, jerk!” Daphne clenched her teeth.

'See, he's still the same guy I met before. The same proud and egomaniac guy who thinks he has everything!' Laughing inwardly, she was right all along.

Maverick had never changed, and he was still that same incorrigible man she had blindly fallen in love with. But now, Daphne knew better than to rub his prideful ego.

Her ex-boyfriend grimaced, baring his anger to once he called his girlfriend. “You can’t live without me, Daphne. Someday, when you’ve realized that fact, you’ll be coming back to me, begging me to take you back, bitch!”

He leaned into her ears and haunted her with his menacing voice. “So if I were you, stop squeezing yourself into your friend’s place, as you’re just disturbing her.”

She couldn’t keep her nerves calm about his appalling statements. Pushing him away from her, she derided. “You should tell that to yourself, Maverick. Stop squeezing in and out of my business, you fucking braggart!”

Then, without turning back to him, Daphne walked back again to the side street. As she hailed a cab, she heard him uttering one last sentence behind her back.

“You won’t survive in the real world, Daphne! You need me.”

She fisted her palms, pressing them with force as she waited for the taxi. In a minute, a cab stopped in front of her and ignored Maverick’s words as though she didn’t hear them when she get inside the vehicle. Along with the full tilt of the taxi’s speed, Daphne disposed of the lingering thought of Maverick’s remarks.