The Overdue Check

Title: The Overdue Check

Authors: Silver Ink and Lewis Spiel

Writing: Unrequited Romance... (?)

Word Count: 843

You probably intended to scrounge up a proper reply when you returned home from your trip, but you never got to it. Maybe you were ready to apologize, but you didn't really mean it. What ever it was you meant to do, what we have here is the result. Don't expect another chance. I gave it to you the moment you left me.

---

"One more chance! Just one more!"

"I've already invested too much in you. From now on, you're on your own."

"Mariah!"

She stopped for a moment to draw up a dark hood over her head. "Maybe. " Over her shoulder she tossed a small bag of coins. Let's just see how long it is before you come crawling back.

---

"I'm sorry, I'd--"

She turned around to face him but kept her face in the shadows. "What is it this time?"

He tried to speak but again she cut him off tacitly. She slid a thousand dollars across the glass table. "More?"

"Mariah...I don't need money..."

She glanced up, piercing amber eyes slicing through him. "Oh?" she snickered amusedly. "Wasn't that what this was about from the beginning?"

He fell silent, momentarily struck by a past memory. "It never was," he insisted. "Believe me, I loved you."

"Don't give me that nonsense. If that were the case, what were you doing with that other woman? Socializing?"

His tone changed and became defensive. "She was a client! Honest!"

"Which proves my earlier point about the money." Mariah laughed scornfully. "Not that it means anything to me. You're just an experiment to me, Adrian. An experiment. And a rather failed one at that." She twirled a strand of pink hair. "I must admit, though-- keeping you around has been rather... interesting."

"Mariah.... you...You said that you'd never leave me. You broke that promise." Adrian pressed on, determined to emerge from the argument as a victor. "Me, dating for money?You're one to talk. Wasn't that man you were seeing the CEO of some bigshot company?"

"You need your eyes checked, pet. I hadn't left the building for a month." Her sly smile was gone, replaced by a firm line of ambivalence. "I have little time for you to waste, Adrian. State what you are here for and begone."

Realizing that he would be unable to gain any ground in his argument, Adrian conceded defeat. "I don't want your money, and I don't want you back, either. Don't misunderstand that. I just wanted to make my stance on what happened clear." The fight seemed to evaporate from his posture as he slumped against the back of his chair. With an awkward- almost ashamed air- he stumbled to his feet, ready to leave the room.

She turned her back to him again, spinning in her lavish seat. She almost breathed a sigh of relief. If he didn't want her, then what would his purpose of coming? Our relationship ended years ago. He better just go away. Him and all those other boys. I've have about enough of them.

Adrian stepped back and closer towards the door. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry. You should know that I always have loved--love--you...enough to let you go. Goodbye, Mariah."

He opened the door and the guard escorted him out the structure. Goodbye Adrian, she thought as she watched his small figure walk out of her estate.

---

Adrian returned to his hotel room feeling a sense of loss, as well as an innate relief after speaking with his ex girlfriend for the last time. When their relationship was at its best, he'd spoken highly and sweetly of his significant other to his gossip-hungry friends and relatives. They were all waiting for him to fall from his temporary high. He was aware of it, but he had no intention of falling. When his relationship finally, inevitably soured, those same friends and relatives gathered him close to their breast as if they thought he hadn't known they'd been waiting for this.

But backstabbing friends were still backstabbing friends. In the years following, they tossed him an offhand comment: (Hey, Adrian-- how's that ex of yours? Weren't you going to marry her? Father and Mother are still ever so disappointed)

Still even worse were the inquiries of his old high school classmates, who wanted him to "pay for what he'd done to Mariah." One of the things that followed him from high school was the common knowledge that he'd been the one to make the first mistake.

But what was the point? They'd both erred. He, in not paying enough attention to her. She, in taking him back. Perhaps it was only his own folly that ruined their relationship beyond repair. He could never apologize enough for what he'd done, and no one would- could- forgive him.

If he tried to claim (like Mariah, was the painful reminder) that the whole affair meant nothing to him in the end, he'd be a liar still.

Finally, tortured by accusation and guilt, he'd turned up on Mariah's doorstep, yearning for forgiveness.

Artists' Notes:

Green text= Lewis 

Purple text= SilverInk

Collaboration piece, as can be inferred by the changing colors. Originally Lewis's idea; I just helped expand it a tiny bit. I have an idea to continue Mariah's story and may or may not post that.

(If you've seen the Beyblade cartoons, yes, I did copy Mariah's name and hair color off of that >.< I don't have any ownership or affiliation to them and I'm not trying to claim any :) )

~SilverInk