“Here you go!” With a tainted smile across her lips, Sofia handed the freshly brewed cup of coffee she’d made over the counter to Brenda, who was nearly as enthusiastic as she was.Brenda looked into the cup before spreading a few dollar bills across the table and she returned a smile. “You’re getting better at this, newbie” She commended and Sofia’s eyes sparked as though she craved that much validation from someone she saw only once a day. But then again, it was Brenda—the same Brenda who didn’t like her a few weeks ago when she started because of how many times she mixed up her order.“Really?” Sofia echoed, thrilled to hear that and Brenda rolled her eyes.“Don’t push it, newbie” She turned around and left the queue, she wasn’t going to stop calling her that even if overnight, Sofia turned into an expert. She, on the other hand liked the name and Brenda. She was one of the early morning customers that Sofia looked forward to. Merely a love-hate relationship but Brenda soon began t
“He’s drunk.” Aaron reached out to him only for Theodore to yank his hand away. “Why is it so impossible that i find a wife for myself huh?” He raised his voice but his eyes set between both Cynthia and Sofia. “Am i not a Baron?”“Or is it because you’re not my mother?” He snarled and a tear rolled down Cynthia’s cheeks. Her face was red and flustered and her lips quivered slightly. “I didn’t say that” Came a whimper from her lips and Sofia remembered the time in the coffee shop where Theo had told her all about his father and how his mother never came back for him.How all his life, he was conflicted over how much a Baron he was and how much he didn’t want all of this but somehow here he was, here he was being the person he claimed to hate. Sofia wiped her tears and realized that the Theodore from the coffee shop was gone and it might’ve been because of her.“That’s enough” Oscar chastised him, seeing how he caused the whole countenance of the room to fall. Theo, with his hands rais
“Sofia.”His voice drew her attention towards him and when she turned to face his earnest gaze, she expected him to at least be dressed but rather Oscar arched his brows and held the pregnancy test in his hands. “What is this?” He asked. What it look like?Even she couldn’t fathom the tension-filled moment as words failed her. “Oscar—“ She rather called but he shook his head. “Why did you hide this from me?” He let out a deep exhale from his lips as he tried to drown his racing thoughts. “Are you—““Oscar.”“Are you pregnant, Sof?” He asked the obvious question and her cheeks grew inflamed with embarrassment. “I don’t know Oscar. The truth is i’ve not been feeling well and i’ve not been feeling myself and i just wanted to rule it out. I don’t know” She walked towards him to hold his hands.“The reason i didn’t tell you yet was i didn’t want to make a fuss out of what was not. And if you heard my voicemail, i assumed you’d come back home and then i’d have known the results but—““You
Emma reached to spike the volume of the radio up as she dashed across the highway. The winds blew dry the tears that dropped from her eyes, swaying her hair from side to side as well. She sobbed to the Pink Floyd song playing on the stereo and shaking her head, Emma reminisced on the past few months with Damien and how she was always never enough.She was near over her first trimester and with his child inhabiting inside of her, she still didn’t know what to do nor where she was going. For a moment, she just wanted out. And this rented car was to take her back to her hometown on the other side of Salem.Just then, her phone rang on the dashboard and it was her mother.Emma had to clear her hoarse throat so she could be audible as she slid across the screen, one eye on the phone and the other on the road. The express was barely busy but there was a building traffic in the distance.“Hello” There was a crack in Emma’s voice as she sniffled.“Are you close?” Her mother anticipated her r
The silence throughout the entire house was deafening.But luckily for Sofia, Annie had driven back to the villa with the rest of the Baron family and now, they both were slouched in the corner of room. Sofia stared into the distance with her arms folded, a million thoughts gushing behind her eyes.The last she’d seen Oscar was when he furiously alighted from the car and charged towards his office in the house. It was a dreadful ride with a brooding tension that could be cut with a knife. And ever since Francesca and Aaron had announced the news, everyone was whirling in silence. Not many words were said even though they all knew what it meant.It meant that it was over.There was no point anymore and as selfish as it sounded, Aaron had won. Oscar’s anger was justified but Sofia’s fate was still unknown. “I shouldn’t be out here” She said to Annie who then turned around to her. They were the only ones left downstairs, just opposite the room Oscar was in. “I should meet him”“It’s a t
Sofia forced her eyes open to the intensity of the sun beating in through the windows and spearing her temples. Her eyelids were heavy as she struggled to sit up. She was in a bed that she didn’t even remember entering. Her memory was all foggy and her head was like forks were bashing into each other.It was a hungover headache and she didn’t even remembering drinking so much. The last thing she recalled was walking away from Oscar and finding her way out the front doors. A glimpse of Annie’s face flashed in her migraine-troubled head and she gasped softly. There was concern in her eyes and a voice that called back to her.“Where are you going, Sofia?” She asked.The next second, she was purged of the memory and even she couldn’t answer that question now—where she went. All she knew was that finally, it wasn’t night anymore. It was a fresh day and she was willing to put everything behind her, but only after she could just find out where she was. She reached for her phone on the coun
"How did i get here Theodore?” Sofia squared him in his eyes and he ran his hands through his thick, moist hair. “Can we just sit and talk like reasonable adults?” He scoffed underneath his breath but all she did was brush into his shoulders and reached around for whatever belonged to her.“I should go” Sofia was agitated, as if staring at the half nude bod of her husband’s brother wasn’t bad enough, her mind also reminisced about the taste of his lips. This was over and it was never happening again—they both made that abundantly clear the last time they spoke.And they agreed to actively avoid each other, never to speak again. As she reached for her things, she decided to keep to that promise. “Can we just talk, Sofia?” He reached to hold her but she slipped out of his grasp.“You know what nevermind” Out of breath, she heaved from her lips and her hair was a disaster on top of her head. Bags were livid beneath her eyes and her skin was a washed crimson color. She could’ve just had a
“Something’s happened, Annie.”Sofia was out of breath as she charged through the guest room doors to see Annie was still around. The latter turned back to her in surprise before bending over to wipe her face with a towel. “Why are you even still around—you know what nevermind” Sofia shook her head.“It’s about Francesca” She added and Annie couldn’t resist the urge to roll her eyes to the back. “Please not again” She scoffed beneath her breath before they both made their way into the bedroom. “I’m not kidding, Annie. She knows about Theodore and I” Sofia continued and those words were more than enough to halt An in her steps.There was a look of horror in her eyes when she turned back. “What?”“It’s a long story but i met her this morning in the alleyway and she looked me dead in the eyes and told me she knew something that could absolutely wreck me. Before you ask, she wasn’t bluffing” I lowered my voice the second i heard footsteps behind the door and Annie drew close.“What?”“I—i
FIVE YEARS LATER.“Aunt Annie!” A child’s scream reverberated through the halls before a little girl of about five years scurried into the room in a bright yellow dress and the first thing she did was embrace Ann who was waiting with her usual open arms.“How are you, Mia?!” She lifted the girl into her arms, adorning her flustered face with kisses. “Where is your mommy?” And just as she asked that question, Sofia scurried right after, Oscar by her right hand. “Have you got the keys?” She asked, panting from her lips and looking around the room perhaps for anything they might’ve been forgetting. But just for a brisk moment, Oscar reached out to her hands.“You look beautiful.” He didn’t fail to compliment her whenever she did, in the last five years at that. Oh how time flies, truly. And to say a lot had changed would be a massive understatement but then again, not so much, I mean Oscar and Sofia were still so madly in love with each other.“Mommy, aren’t we running late?” Mia called
SIX MONTHS LATER.The sun was out on this chill Saturday evening and the winds filled the trees around the magnificent canopies. There were flowers of every kind and colors and balloons scattered across the garden fields. Everyone was seated with their eyes turned to the couple, the main reason they were here in the first place.“Theodore Baron and Victoria Freya Winters” The officiator called both their names and it was hard for a tear not to well in Sofia’s eyes in that moment. Her sister looked beautiful in that flowing white dress and it was exactly how they’d both envisioned everything since they were kids.Including her as her maid of honor and the same could be said about Theo who by his right hand side had Oscar beside him as well. In that moment, his eyes met Sofia ever beaming with a smile. Six months had passed since his very first surgery and all the events that came after. So did the second and the third, and now that the trial was over, there was only one final test left
Sofia was the never one to believe in miracles.Well that was until today. Three hours had passed since everything that happened, Dimitri’s arrest as the everything in context. And as she sat there, she kept replaying it all behind her eyes. She was wrapped with a blanket and Theo and Damien were right beside her.Of course they knew now of what had happened to Oscar and how Annie had dived in front of a bullet to save Sofia, falling off the building in the process. They were just as shocked as the person who unfortunately had to witness it all. It was no wonder she stayed quiet for those three hours, reeling in the aftershock and post trauma. However, the silence had to come to an end as the doctor came out of the room just then. She stood with aching feet, feeling like she’d always spent weeks in these particular hallway. Her lips parted but her eyes said the most words as the doctor heaved a sigh.“It was a success. You can go in now” The doctor broke the news and in that moment,
“We can’t let her leave” Dimitri muttered to David, whose name Sofia had only just come to know. The two of them were at a safe distance but she could hear the murmurs from their lips. They stood at the foot of the door so her only likely escape was jumping down down the five foot building and she couldn’t dare to scream because Dimitri had already assured her his non reluctance to shoot if she tried anything funny.And so she stood there, with her fingers intertwined with each other, playing it off as though she wasn’t genuinely scared for her life. Her skin was pale and her face was flushed off every color. A million thoughts ravaged her head, most especially the ones about how she could escape.She wondered how unfortunate it was that she’d walked into yet another predicament but in that moment, half the thoughts that roamed behind her eyes were about Oscar. And each time she stared at Dimitri, she was so full of vengeance that she wanted to pay him back for what he’d done.Howeve
As Sofia stood there, she couldn’t even utter a single word. Her whole mind raced with a thousand thoughts as the chaos behind the curtains echoed back to her. Her eyes were flooded with tears and there was a shooting pain that pierced up her spine.In a moment, her eyes fell to her open hands and he was all she saw. It was as though she had drifted back to the moment that she held unto him, begging him to open his eyes…to wake up. But the hardest part was she wasn’t even certain that he could hear her. She wasn’t certain that he would ever actually open those eyes again. And hers, well they darted to the piece of sandwich that laid capriciously on the hospital floor and before she could even start blaming herself for leaving, something she would have never done if she knew things would turn out this way. And for what, for food.Before she could blame herself or further immense herself into the guilt, an arm drew her back. “Hey hey” That shrill rang into her ears and Sofia had to ac
There was always something so terrifying about nightmares. Especially for Oscar and so that was why when he plunged his eyes open, only to find out that he was surrounded by an impaling darkness, the first thing he did was scream at the top of his lungs.The atmosphere was cold, sending a chill up his spine so much that he shivered. The hollow halls returned an echo of his voice as well and he was too afraid to move even an inch forward. He hated the darkness, he wasn’t scared or, although there was something quite eerie in the air.He just hated being lost and in that moment, he was.But that was until a shrill whisper crept up behind him and Oscar sharply turned around. He could swear that someone was here, was close to him but alas, when he threw his head over his shoulders, there was no one. Maybe now was the right time to get scared.His hands fell to his side, feeling the crisp texture of his scrubs and as he moved forward, the noises were all he heard. It was hard to move with
“It’s been four hours” A voice echoed from behind Sofia and it wasn’t until she turned around that her eyes fell upon Damien. His hands slipped into his pocket with an elongated gaze right next to her. She threw a look over her shoulders though she still clung to the stairwell.“It’s you” She happened to mutter plainly before he raised his hands into the air. “Well I’m no doctor,” Damien teased. “But I brought you a sandwich and a cup of coffee” He stretched out his hands and while her eyes to it, there was the ghost of a smile that made it across her lips.“I’m not hungry” Sofia heaved but by the look in Damien’s eyes, she didn’t have much of an option but to cave in, taking the food from his hands. Though she sipped the coffee, she kept the sandwich aside and for a brief moment, there were comforted by the shrouded silence between them. That was before Sofia suddenly piped up after a few minutes.“Thank you by the way” She said.Damien folded his arms with a shrill nod. “For this as
For the longest time, Ferdinand wanted to say those words to Theresa. It had even a really long time since we last saw him, rock bottom and fresh out of jail all while being handed divorce papers from his long term partner but just like everyone else, a lot had changed for him.And even more had come into perspective, like realizing how bad he’d been through the years, to Theresa, to Freya and then to Sofia. And now that he was all alone, he wanted nothing more than to finally tender his apology to those who he had hurt.But the fear that it might have been too late plagued Ferdinand, causing a few sleepless nights. There was no way he would have survived without Damien, who had come to the house to pick up some things and Ferdinand had told him everything that had happened.Damien didn’t have to do all of that including showing up at least twice a week but he did. He did because for him as well, everything had changed. Luckily, even as things weren’t as bad as they once was, he didn
The chilly rush of air breezed into Sofia’s face and through her hair, swaying it left and right across her shoulders. In case she drifted so far, the distinct scent of pharmaceuticals and the rapid beeping of the heart monitors both far and near were enough to remind her of where she was.She stood with her arms crossed in front of her, reminding herself by taking deep heavy breaths to calm down. Today was the day of Oscar’s first surgery which was a bypass graft procedure undoubtedly the most important and complex of the three he was recommended.The doctor might’ve said a million words to Sofia about how this was to repair the damaged blood vessels around his heart, both narrowed and clogged to improve his blood flow so it betters the chances of the trial working but it didn’t stomp her anxiety. It could be good but then again, she was well aware of the risks to know that it could also be terrible.So she stood still and even her deep breaths didn’t work so much. No one knew the am