Katie Adams
‘I miss my best friend, our friendship, it has given me the most treasured memories of my heart’ - Proud happy mama
Today
Lying at home in bed with the news on, snuggled up to the one man in my life that I can count on - my fiancé Jamie.
That was when we both saw the news that we were all dreading.
The news that we were all getting laid off from my friend Stella’s husbands company, well his father’s to be fair, he was just the new CEO.
Since his dad was dying of a cancer that unfortunately the Doctors can not fix, he was dying rapidly and that was why their was layoffs - espsially from higher up, making up a newer, a younger board member that would help Stella and Aston as they began to take over in the next few months.
It just was not that easy for any of us.
One moment, there was the two of us in bed, I was loving my night in with the love of my life.... Until a call from Stella changed everything for all of us!
As she was also a friend and a soon to be boss, I was their for anything that she needed. Although it was not easy for me, for many reasons and those reasons would come back to haunt me with this phone call.
I’ll explain...
10 years before
I had spent all of high school with Stella as my best friend, we were super close. Although their was one difference, Stella was with my Jamie and I was with her Aston.
The four of us were joined at the hip - that was until the day that we all turned 18 years old.
When Aston was told that one day that he would have to take over from his grandfather, and would need a strong woman by his side.
That person being my best friend Stella who was with Jamie at the time that we were all told this.
I remember walking into that room with Aston and my friends, he was holding my hand tight as he was being told this by his his mother.
“I’m sorry son, but with your father no longer with us - it means that one day that you will have to step up to the plate” She told him.
“Mom, I’m only 18 right now. We are having fun” He told her as he held me close to him tight.
As we watched her sit in her big chair, we knew that we wouldn’t be getting anywhere, I knew that one day I would have to leave Aston behind me as much as I loved him and wanted to grow old with him.
I knew when exactly that we would break up, as their was a weekend before we broke to go to different uni’s.
I knew that it was in two weeks time.
I was right of course. Of course that I was right as here I was now a decade later with somebody else, not with the one that I love from school.
Anyway....
The Cabin
Arriving in the height of summer, with Jamie and Stella in the back and me and Aston in the front as he drove us their.
My throat began to swell up as I knew what was coming.
That being here with them, with Aston was quite possibly the last time that I would see him.
Pulling up to the house, Jamie and Stella got out of the car by doing their amazing acrobats skills - however Aston wrapped his arms around me as we stared on at the two of them acting like little kids.
“Ast, what if this is it - the four of us together” I struggled at the thought that things would never be the same again.
That after this weekend and Jamie’s kid like attitude or Stella’s go get personality would leave it just to be me and Aston who would some day have to be forced into the company. Something that I knew that he didn’t want.
“Kitty Kat, don’t worry - it’s always going to be you and me” He smiled as he pulled me onto his lap.
“Are you two ever coming outta that car?” Jamie and Stella shouted as they headed to the cabin.
Laughing, Aston kissed me as though it was his last. I knew that, because I knew him.
Taking out our bags, we met up with the S and J, or as we called them, the couple that would make their mark in the world as being the a Supermodel and an actor.
Where as us, we just wanted to be our self, and be together.
Being with them, with Aston at the Cabin one last time was the hardest thing that I had ever had to do.
Choosing the rooms, the one that we had, the their was no roof - so it was easy to see the stars at night if their were no clouds arounds.
Aston was always so romantic with me.
He would wrap me up in blankets on cold nights, and then warm nights we would snuggle under the stars in the warm grass where we would act as though we were a young married couple still in the honey money face, even though I knew that this was our last time together.
Stella and Jamie loved the fact that they could just jump in the lake and nobody would bother us... However, myself and Aston on the other hand knew it in our soul - knew that even though the fact that we were in love, that we slept in the same bed, that he wrapped me in his arms tightly - this was going to be the very last time that we were every in this situation.
It was the day before we left that made me see that for sure.
The day that I saw a box.
We had spoken about taking a year off the two of us. However, we would still end up back at different uni’s and he was already spoken to about this when his grandpa steps down.
He needed somebody who was his equal - not someone whom just loved him with all of her heart. The way that I do.
I loved Aston as though it would kill me. I knew what he had to do and it was not going a year’s holiday with me.
Taking Stella to the side, she knew how I felt for him and how she felt for Jamie. So as we had some girls time, I asked her to do me something that would break my heart - yet also keep my love safe.
Today
I never did look in that box, and to this day it haunts me.
Aston went on and married Stella with my blessing, it was my idea as I knew that she could keep him as safe as anyone in his family - just like myself and Jamie, it was with her blessing.
We kept each other’s true love’s safe in such an unconventional way.
So, while I was now snuggled up on the sofa with Jamie, she was with Aston, my Aston. Whom I still loved to this day.
For the four of us, we were just waiting until we could be with the ones that we were rightly fully to be with.
Each time that Stella and Aston met with his grandfather, all that came from his mouth was abuse about myself and Jamie and Aston wanted to rebel each time. Yet, they had to keep up this charade for his grandfather and his mother who went by every little thing that his grandfather said...
That was until tonight of course.
It wasn’t until we saw it on the news and my phone along with Jamie’s at the same time, so we knew that was until we saw our text... Mine from Stella and his Aston, since the entire thing with his family.
We knew that something had happened to one of them.
We just cried and preyed as the taxi drove us to the nearest hospital.
I wanted to be by the sides of the family as much as I could and having Jamie rub his hand up and down my back was just never going to be the same as it was with Aston. It just wasn’t.
He was my true love, and I could never be with him.
His mother Bea and his grandpa made that very clear, long before we were even together. Just the fact that he had friends like me and Jamie repulsed them.
As we pulled up to the hospital, Jamie turned to me, and he said this - “I know that this isn’t real Kate, that you are still in love with Ast, I know because I love Stella”
“You know?” I asked him, even though I had a ring from him on my finger.
“This thing was stupid anyway Jamie” I told him as we got outta the car. “I remember that we only did this to protect each other until the time came”
“Yes, we swapped partners for the sake of the Thomas Foundation - I travelled with you, even thou I knew that you wanted Aston by your side and Stella was with Aston here in NYC, doing whatever the grandfather wanted”
As myself and Jamie talked of the past, talk of missing each other’s true love. That was when Stella came rushing in the door.
Her torn skirt, head covered in blood and all that she wanted was to be in Jamie’s arms, something that she could no longer do.
They stared at each other longingly as he held onto my hand as though we were a truly happy couple. To be fair, we were - we just were not the kind of couple that people believed we were.
I was this British born, NYC laid back terror who lived with her father and step mom until she was 18 years old. When my saw the reason that made me alive - Aston, my dad was so proud and the fact that we were together for our entire high school journey, they just could never understand why now in the year 2024 that I was with Jamie, his best friend and he was with my best friend Stella.
Aston’s grandfather hated where I was from, who I was and the fact that I came from no money. His mother had no choice since she was only in control because Aston lost his father when he was a child, as I lost my own mother.
When we saw Stella covered in blood, she came over to me and Jamie first. The three words that she whispered was “I’m sorry Katie” As she collapsed to the floor.
