Chapter 255: Do You Like It?
After a long and exhausting search. Derek had nearly jumped for joy when he had come across the crafts fair. He had chosen it as the venue for their first date as a couple, mainly because he had been focusing on Emily’s love for embroidering.
It had seemed like exactly the place where she would feel at home. So he had decided that that would be where he would be taking her. During the drive to the fair, he had been ninety-nine percent sure that he had made the right choice.
That Emily would be very happy with the location of their date. But even if he had been ninety-nine percent sure. There was still that one percent left to the side. Such a tiny fraction of doubt. It should have been easy for him to dismiss it. To cast it aside as nothing more than a nuisance.
Something so insignificant that it did not bear paying any attention to. But that was the thing with doubt. It did not matter how small, a little bit of self-doubt was. It had a way of wriggling through the cracks in a person’s mind, and making them start to second guess themselves.
For the most part, Derek had managed to keep up a cool and unbothered front in Emily’s presence. But from time to time, he had felt the nerves kick in. Whispers at the back of his mind becoming loud enough for him to hear.
What if she does not like it? What if she finds it boring? What if it is too cheesy for her taste? What if she would have preferred it if you had taken her someplace expensive? And just lavished her with gifts like you did with all of your other girlfriends in the past. The whispers said.
No, I know Emily. She is going to like this gift. Another whisper, this one defending Derek’s choice, had said. Even so, the self-doubt had still been there.
What if Emily really did not like the craft fair? And her being herself. She would try to spare his feelings, to not let him know that it was not something that she was enjoying and she would lie about it.
’Oh Derek, it’s great, I like it,’ she would say. Both of them knowing the moment the words left her mouth that they were untrue. But at the same time, the two of them not willing to acknowledge that it was a lie. Would Derek have been able to go through the date?