Chapter 29: Memories From the Past

Gwen sneered, incredulous.
“So I wasn’t wrong,” she whispered to herself.
Her legs gave in for a minute, and she had to sit. Her entire body was trembling now, and Finn was looking at her without understanding anything.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, trying to help her to sit, but Gwen shoved him away.
“Don't touch me!” she screamed.
All her memories from that time came back like an avalanche inside her brain. She was trying to make sense of everything, but it was being very hard.
“Can you tell me what’s going on?” Finn raised his voice, frustrated. It was clear from his face that he wasn’t following anything and was nervous about her sudden anger. She almost felt pity for him, but the images inside her head were stronger than that feeling.
“So Vivienne has been your fiancée this entire time. She was the one engaged to you when we met, right?” Gwen asked, still trying to put the pieces together.
“We broke up on the day I met you. I told you that back then. So what’s the big surprise?”
But Gwen shook her head, still not believing it.
“No, no, no. I didn’t know she was the same fiancée, I… I’m so stupid. I saw you two… On the day I left, I saw-” Gwen said, putting her face on her hands, not able to put into words what she wanted to say.
“What did you see? Gwen, you’re not making any sense,” Finn took a few steps in her direction cautiously, making sure he didn’t touch her again. But he was also dying to comprehend what was happening. He was in the dark the entire time, so anything she could tell him about the day she left would be a gift.
“I saw you kissing her. Something… something horrible happened and I discovered that I was pregnant. Then I rushed to see you and tell you about it, and-” Gwen couldn’t finish the sentence because she was now crying her eyes out.
Finn was paralyzed in front of her in shock.
“You saw me kissing Vivienne? When…?” But then he stopped in the middle of the question, recalling that day. “That… You saw that?” he looked at her, astonished.
Gwen was hiccupping and wiping her tears aggressively, angry at herself for crying at that moment. She had held on to that for so long, and now she had spat it all out to him. Why couldn’t she keep her mouth shut?
“How could you possibly have seen that? I was at the office and…” Finn was murmuring to himself, trying to make sense of the new information. His eyes locked on hers with incredible intensity.
“Gwen, it was not what you thought. I don’t know how you found me there, but I was working late that day and Vivienne came to me talking about our engagement again, after so long. I had nothing to do with her while we were dating. I… She kissed me, but I pushed her away. How…?”
Gwen was looking at him, seeing how hard he was trying to explain himself. Could it be that she had seen it wrong? It was not possible that she had been mistaken about what she saw.
“No, no, no. I know what I saw,” she continued, trying to convince herself that her old memories were as vivid and clear as the day she experienced them.
“Gwen, listen to me,” Finn came forward and grabbed her arms, pulling her up, not caring if she would shove him away again. “I did not kiss her, and we were not together, okay? Vivienne was my fiancée before we met, and I didn’t even like her. It was an arranged marriage, I never loved her. I never loved anyone like I loved you,” he concluded, looking into her eyes with those powerful green eyes that had the strength to destabilize her completely.
Gwen didn’t want to accept his explanation. She didn’t want to believe she was wrong about him this whole time. Everything could’ve been different between them if she had stopped the kiss and tried to understand what was going on. Maybe he would stay by her side if she told him what had happened.
“She is still with you, and that says enough,” Gwen said, very upset. “You keep saying that she’s not your fiancée, that it is complicated, but you accept her presence as though she owns you. So how can you expect me to believe anything you say?”
“All I ask is that you trust me. I’m not lying to you, Gwen. I never did.”
“You know what?” Gwen said, finally more composed. “You’d never fight the expectations of those around you for what you want. You’d never see my side if I told you everything that happened that day, so what’s the point of trying?”
“Everything? Did something else happen? Maybe you should tell me before making your own conclusions. Perhaps you don’t know me that well,” he stated, his anger and confusion threatening to burst out of him.
“Perhaps,” she continued, shrugging her shoulders. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. We should leave the past in the past, and focus on the future. You can help raise Cody, and nothing more.”
Finn released her, finally understanding what she had said. He knew what that meant. There was no more Gwen and Finn. He was willing to fight for her, but it was extremely hard to do so when he wasn’t even aware of the reasons why she had to walk away.
So how could he fight a ghost of the past? He had no idea where to start, and to make things worse, Gwen was getting involved with Clyde now. Someone who, he had to admit, was a very strong competitor.
He had no way to recover what he had lost. Or better yet, who he had lost. It was pretty clear to him that he had lost Gwen forever.