Chapter 17

She felt there is the silhouette of that person in her memory walking towards the door, which is hidden in darkness; slowly, Circe lost the shadow of man, and the corner of her eyes teared up, slowly a tear dropped from the corner of her eyes.

But she didn’t dare to open her eyes in the fear that she will lose the person she is looking for; maybe this is what she has been doing for years.

Yearning and loving the person in the dark, never facing him or revealing her side to anyone, just acting like nothing happened.

A way to escape from the pain and past; she has forgotten long ago or thought like that.

Life has never been easy on her, but still, she made the most of that. Now she wants to get her niece to her destination, no matter how much she has to pay.

She has already left things, and even though she wanted to go and mend the past, she couldn’t do that.

Now, this life is what she has, and she has to cherish it, and the people in her life, after all, the part will not come back, and the future is unknown; only the present is what matters now.

If not for Anna’s words, she may never again remember those things, as she has locked them secretly in the deepest part of her heart and mind.

Locking forever, and ever.

‘I hope you are doing well, heh, you will be, after all, you…. Forget it. Maybe what I have for you is only a wish, wishing you a prosperous life.

I am still unable to say goodbye, maybe because part of me still wants to keep you forever with me, because this memory is the only thing that drove me to live, and I don’t want to lose that one thread of hope to survive.

You  may be far away, but the man who has always protected and loved me is still with me, in my heart, and you will be there forever with me until the last breath of my life.’

She slowly drifted into an endless nightmare.

Anna came back from the bathroom; after freshening up, she looked at her sister.

She doesn’t know why and feels her sister is different like her sister was surrounded by thick sorrow.

She also saw the small tear falling from the side of her eyes, even though she knew her sister was sleeping, but seeing her where she was having a nightmare, Anna couldn’t bear it.

When she wanted to wake her sister, suddenly Circe returned to normal, as though the second before she wasn’t the sad one, crying but now sleeping like a baby.

She sighed,

She doesn’t know what knot is in her sister’s heart, even though she doesn’t know.

Both are sisters with different personalities, but their fate is the same in the path of loneliness and pain.

She has no luck in her life to meet the right person, or she doesn't have the chance to feel the warmth of love, but at least she wants her sister to have one happy life where she can find her true love.

She wants to talk about this because her sister reacted to Bella’s encounter with the wolves. 

She felt her sister had become obsessed with Bella, wanting to dictate Bella’s life; Anna didn’t want her daughter to be under the pressure of her sister but her own life- a meaningful life. 

Both sisters with different thoughts spent their entire afternoon in the office; they both didn’t go out of the office; Bella glanced towards the office every few seconds.

When she had a heart-to-heart chat with her mother, she could see that her mother wasn’t fully present there mentally; her mother’s mind was somewhere else.

Now both the elder ladies didn’t come out from the office room, and the door tightly shut so that no one could see what’s happening inside; this made Bella frown.

But she had to put those thoughts behind her head because her attention turned towards the customers.

When three girls got freed from the day of work, it was already dark outside; they were all sprawled on the chairs and the counter with a tired look on their faces.

“Hey, I am so tired; I need a break,” Via cried out as she felt her muscles were cramped.

Mia also hummed in the agreement,

“Yeah, if not, then maybe we will not be able to feel hands and legs in two days.”

“Okay, I have a plan, we can take a break, now my aunt and mother are here; so we can walk around and take a few days off, in this way we can take leave; also we can enjoy the rare vacation, maybe we could go somewhere.” 

Bella suggested a very yearning and pleading look, which was hard to resist for both Olivia and Mia.

For one, they both can’t say ‘no’ to Bella, and second, they also want to have the vacation, because this year they haven’t taken any leave for almost six months, so they want to have one long break, and when Bella suggested, they also felt that idea is good.

So they both looked at each other and agreed, after all, they also want to have a vacation, and now there are elders with them, and this is something they would love to do, spend time with family.

They were all happy; almost their smile reached the ears where they were grinning ear to ear.

“Okay, then it’s a deal; we are going on vacation, yahoo!!” Mia was clapping and jumping.

As she is the one who wears her emotions on her sleeves, she was always very expressive on her face, well many times though where she never restrained herself from showing what she feels.

“Okay, okay guys, now we have to plan the whole vacation; where should we go, beach? Some historical place? Or were there some other countries? Where?” Liv asked with a big smile on her face

“Where? Ummm?” Everyone was thinking deeply suddenly something flashed in Mia’s mind

She first hesitated to express her opinion.

‘Should I say or not? If I said then things would take another route, but I want to say, I want to take them to that place, which is not less than any fairyland, but okay, I decided I will take my friends to that place.”

“Ahh, I think I know one place where we can go for vacation. That place is far away from urban life. Also, that place is like a fairyland; I think you guys will love it.”Mia started by explaining the good things about that place.

“Really? Where?” Liv became interested, and Bella’s eyes also moved towards Mia.

“It’s not a famous place like others; that place is quite hidden from the outside world, not many people know about that place because of some… things, but I know that place and the people also so we can go there and stay there for few days no one will say anything, how about it?” Mia was still clamoring and saying nonsense, not coming to the main point.

Mia planned to make both Bella and Liv so curious that no matter what happens, they wouldn’t think of canceling this trip, so she is giving them bait, and she knows that this will work perfectly. After all, her two friends are always like a child; they will not let anything defeat them once provoked.

“Okay, Mia, I understand what you are saying. We both understand, but where is this place?” Liv was mad

She knows Mia was just baiting them; still, Liv wants to know.

“Okay, it’s a place called ‘wolf’s Hill,’ it’s not very far, it’s like a forest, but that’s a private property of Al… cough my parent’s Boss, so I don't think they will have any objection, so we can go there and relax” Mia almost slipped the word ‘Alpha.’

“You are saying this much; then we will go to that place for vacation,” Bella decided.

“Okay, then when will we set off?” Liv asked in confusion

After all, they can’t just leave for vacation without informing anyone, and they have business here, which is popular in the town, and they can’t just leave everything and go for vacation.

“I think my mum and aunt need at least a day to recover from jetlag and we also have to tidy up and inform the customers that we will not be here for some time so they wouldn't be worried so we can leave after three days, how?” Bella said after thinking sometime

“Cool,” both Liv and Mia agreed.

After that, they began to clean the tables and also the kitchen.

Then they walked towards the office, where they saw Aunt Circe was sleeping on the bed, and Anna was on the couch.