Alexia's POV

I waited ten seconds, then thirty seconds, then a minute... as time wore on, I couldn't help but peek open one eye.

Lee's face was impassive, unreadable. Then it broke out into a giant grin, and I had to open both eyes and blink them several times to make sure I was seeing this correctly.

"That's great news!" he practically cheered, and I blinked twice more just to check that I'm really seeing this.

"It is?"

Lee nodded energetically, his face beaming so brightly I was surprised rays of sunlight weren't shooting out of him.

"Yeah, I was going to say the same thing, but I wasn't sure how you felt and if you felt the same way and I was worried about how you'd react because well, we-" He was talking rapidly, his voice a pitch higher than usual.

I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing. Lee broke off as soon as I started, and just stared at me owlishly.

"What's so funny?" he asked, confusion laced in his voice.

"Lee, you were rambling," I told him, but he clearly still didn't get it by the way he continued to stare at me, expression unchanged. "You never ramble. You never babble, you never talk that fast, you never sound like... a teenage girl." I giggled, thinking of how he sounded just like a girl with her first crush the way his voice was.

Lee's face was now a vibrant red, and he started mumbling incoherent things.

I raised a brow, eyes glimmering as I scrutinized Lee in an amused way.

"Who is she?" I asked, and his mumbling stopped, color starting to drain from his face. I felt a smirk sneak onto my face.

"W-Who are you talking about?" His eyes were focused on the table, refusing to meet mine.

"Lee, I know you're seeing someone, and it's perfectly fine. It's what we agreed on, remember? That we could date other people?" I reminded him, giving him a pointed look.

"I know, but I still feel wrong about it," he muttered, and I wanted to squeal and roll my eyes at the same time.

Lee really was a good guy, which was adorable in my opinion. But he was also being incredibly dense right now.

I grabbed the ring sitting on my finger, slipping it off with ease.

"Here, give this to the right girl when you feel it's time," I told him. "Now you don't have to feel tied down, so you shouldn't feel guilty. We agreed that it's over, right?"

He nodded as I dropped the engagement ring into his palm, looking up at me. "Yeah, I guess."

"So no hard feelings, right?" Another nod from him. "Maybe we can be friends," I suggested.

"Yeah, I'd like that." Now Lee was meeting my eyes with a genuine smile, and I had to smile back.

"Good. Since we're friends now, you can tell me all about that girl you met," I teased, winking, and the tip of his ears turned a bit redder.

"W-well, I, uh," he stuttered out, eyes falling to the table once more.

"Oh come on," I urged. "You can tell me. We're just friends." I gave his shoulder a light push, smiling, and that's when he snapped out of the blubbering mess he was.

He regained his cool composure, and started talking about her.

Once he started, it appeared that he couldn't stop.

His eyes grew softer the more he talked about her, his face love-struck. He really had fallen for her, and fallen hard. Harder than he had ever liked me.

I was actually intrigued by his smitten babbling, and found myself listening intently to him drone on and on about her. Him talking about her felt familiar somehow, as if I had experienced that too.

Yet soon I realized that there was a number of people who had entered and exited the café while we sat and talked. The sun outside had also sunk considerably lower in the sky since we first entered the little café, and it was quickly getting late.

"Uh, Lee," I interrupted gently, and he stopped looking so starry-eyed to blink at me. "I should probably get going, we've been here for two hours."

"Huh?" His eyes flickered over to the clock on the wall, and soon saw that I was right. "Oh gosh, you're right! Here, let me drive you home," he said as he grabbed his keys. I stood up, my limbs stiff from sitting so long. Then I grabbed my empty coffee cup, the contents having been gone for quite some time. After disposing of it in the trash, I followed Lee out to his car where he drove me home.

The car ride was silent, but a comfortable sort of silence. The radio was playing softly and I stared out the window, at all the houses and trees blurring together.

He parked in my driveway, and told me that he was probably going back to campus to go back to his girlfriend.

I smiled and nodded. "No hard feelings, right? And we're still friends?" I asked, just to confirm once more.

"Of course," was his reply, and I smiled and waved before shutting the car door.

I walked into my house, feeling freedom taking over my body. Leaning heavily against the door, a smile blossomed.

I finally felt like I was my own person again, and I felt the burden of already being tied down lifted off my shoulders. I couldn't help it; I let out a laugh, one that wasn't forced and wasn't filled with stress. I didn't have to worry about anything this summer. No schoolwork, no marriage, nothing.

It felt good to be free.

Not a mere ten seconds later, did my ecstatic mood deflate.

"Did Lee leave?" My mother had appeared right in front of me, and her tone was already suspicious.

I nodded. "Yes," I answered simply.

"Why?" She looked almost menacing, arms crossed and eyes narrowed.

"He had to go back to his girlfriend," I replied cautiously, watching her reaction. I was starting to get nervous; she won't like the fact that we broke it off.

At first, everything seemed okay, if not a little tense due to her shocked expression. Then her face pinched together, as if she just sucked on a sour lemon. She looked mad.

"His what?" she hissed, and I could detect a rage behind her voice.

"H-his girlfriend," I repeated, starting to play with my fingers as my eyes refused to look up at her. Part of being independent meant making my own decisions and sticking by them. I wasn't going to change my mind and go crawling back to Lee like I knew my mom wanted me to, but that doesn't mean I wasn't afraid of her; I most definitely was. I had spent my entire life tending to her every whim about me, my life up to this point was hers to control. Which meant that it was no life at all. "W-we broke it off," I told her quietly.

"You what?!"

I flinched at the roughness in her voice, and I could tell her anger had skyrocketed. I've never heard her sound so outraged before. She sounded worse than she did when she found out I had cheated on Lee with Colin. "The marriage, we called it off. It was a mutual agreement."

A couple of silent seconds may have ticked by, but the strain in the air multiplied by a finite amount.

"Why would you do that? Why would you break it off with such a rich man?!" she screamed, and I winced. I noticed that she used the adjective rich to describe Lee, instead of all his other redeeming qualities.

I answered, my gaze still focused on the floor. "We just didn't believe we were right for each other."

"No excuses young lady! Do you know marrying into that family would mean for us?! We'd be on the map! Your father would gain business by association, our family would have been rich! We could've afforded any college your heart desired, could've planned any exotic vacations as we pleased!" My eyes widened, dragging themselves up to look at her. I gaped at her words, and she was bristling with too much fury to realize what she had just said. I couldn't even formulate a response, and so she filled the silence with her next words. "Was this because of him?"

I couldn't believe what I was even hearing. I felt my own temper rising, one that may rival hers.

"No Mother," I spat, glaring at her. "This was not because of Colin! Did you even hear what you just said?! You openly admitted to marrying me off so you could get rich! You greedy... greedy.." I stuttered, searching for the words. "Bitch!"

I didn't even feel one ounce of regret for calling my mother that, but she was shocked into silence.

"What did you just say," my mother whispered, phrasing it like a statement. Her face was now devoid of anger, and she just looked outright appalled at my word choice.

"You heard me," I shot back, the fire still burning within me. I gave her the sharpest looks I could muster, my hands feeling the need to clench up. "You were willing to sacrifice my choices, my own free will, just so that you could have your little fantasy of being rich. You wanted the money, and you were willing to give your daughter up for it. I don't think you even cared about Lee and I at all, I bet every time you saw him, you saw dollar signs! Well, sorry to break it to you Mother, but that little fantasy will be nothing more. Even if I had gone through with the marriage, I wouldn't even give the smallest cent of it to you!"

I was sick of it. I was sick of her.

She controlled every aspect of my life since I was a girl, and it took me this long to realize that I had been stripped of my free will. It took eighteen years to realize this, and now I wanted to make up for lost time. I wasn't going to let her dictate my life any longer.

She watched me carefully for about a minute, waiting to see if there was anything more I wanted to say. I simply huffed, blowing a strand of hair out of my face and kept my gaze steady on her.

Then she uttered two words, "Get out."

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oh. my. god. can you BELIEVE her?! like her mom is the epitome of evil she's the embodiment of all things bad. who DOES that? like omf i feel so badly for Alexia right now :c but at least Lee gets his happy ending!

sorry for all you Lee shippers, but it just doesn't work out :\ they hadn't had enough dating experience to know that they wanted to spend their life together, and they were both being manipulated by Alexia's mom. like how cruel can you get?

and anyone pick up on the face that Alexia only calls her mom 'mother'? but her dad is either 'dad' or 'father'?