Enemies Meet On A Narrow Road.

The waves of the beach gently slamming against the shores, plus the combination of the morning sun filtering in through the parted curtains, stirred me awake. I blinked against the light, groggy and sore in all the places that told me last night had been real. Too real.

A soft smile crept onto my lips. I finally felt like a woman after so long. But as I felt the space behind me, my hand grabbed the sheets. It was cold and empty.

I sat up, the sheet slipping off my bare skin. I glanced down at it. I didn't remember covering myself last night.

Did he draw the covers on me? Why is he?

Then my gaze scanned the slightly luxurious room and my heart shuddered, noticing he was gone.

I threw the sheets off, swung my legs down the side of the bed and dashed towards the bathroom, despite the ache in between my legs.

He was gone. Just like that. No goodbyes, no message, no letter.

I bit my bottom lip as I walked back to the bed, a lump forming in my throat. Shame finally washed over me like cold sea water. I slipped into bed as I wrapped the blanket tighter around me, as if it could protect me from the feeling of being used… and foolish.

What was I thinking? Letting a stranger take a part of me away, even if just for one night. I didn’t do things like this. But he’d looked at me like I mattered. Touched me like he needed me.

And now, there was nothing.

Perhaps, he has a girlfriend. Surely, he would. Or maybe a fiance. Or worse, a wife!

The taste of that didn't feel right on my tongue. My fist clenched and my bottom lip felt sore from biting too hard.

Why was I feeling so dejected? I knew what I was getting into last night before I even agreed. I wanted it, perhaps, more than he wanted it and he gave it to me, so why couldn't I get over it?

How would I face everyone now? What would I tell them? That my one night-stand abandoned me afterwards like last night was nothing?

“Well, get over it. This is how the world works,” I chastised myself.

Ryan was right. I truly didn't know much of how the world worked.

I left the unpleasant life of the orphanage at the age of sixteen, thanks to the state who picked me and a few others for a scholarship program to high school.

The first day I walked into the world, it welcomed me with cruelty. I'd thought that leaving the orphanage – where I knew nothing but pain – I could finally live my dream life – happiness and freedom.

It was all I ever craved. But life was unfair and I found out pretty fast…

It was my first day in high school. I didn't think it would rain but it did. The sky mocked me like everyone did at the orphanage. I slipped and fell, or rather, someone pushed me from behind – for being a clumsy, poorly dressed girl with round glasses – and I fell gracelessly.

Everyone in school laughed at me. Some took videos and made memes of it when the shameful scene found it's way to the school forum.

But while I was broken and in despair, there was someone in the crowd who didn't laugh at me.

Ryan.

He was the school's heartthrob – the most sought after, all rounded student.

He stepped out of the crowd, into the rain and gave me his hand. From the moment I took that hand, my life changed.

He made me believe that he was the only one on my side. We dated for two years and he proposed and married me at nineteen. I thought what he showed and gave me was love.

Only now I realized he'd manipulated me, isolated me, and trained me to think he was my oxygen to survive in a world he called, “a wolf eat wolf world”.

Ryan didn’t love me, he owned me. Or at least, that’s what he believed. He wrapped his control around me with soft smiles and careful lies. And like a fool, I drank it all, believing I was lucky to have someone like him… when all he ever did was clip my wings and make me afraid of flying.

And here I was once again, with a different man, different circumstances, but the same hollow feeling in my chest.

“Damn it,” I muttered, wiping the stray tear that slipped down my cheek.

I wasn’t that helpless girl anymore. I had clawed my way out of that cage. I had taken a job at this resort to start afresh, to find the woman that I aspired to be. Not Ryan’s Adele. Not the obedient wife. Not the ghost of someone else’s dreams.

Knock!

A sharp knock at the door made me flinch. My heart jumped to my throat. For a split second, I hoped, ridiculously, that it was him.

I scrambled to my feet, tightening the blanket around my body as I padded to the door and pulled it open.

It was Emily. He stood by the entrance, his eyes drinking in my state – hair a mess, face pale, the oversized blanket wrapped tightly around my naked body like a cocoon.

She grinned knowingly at me, “We're going for breakfast, aren't you coming?”

She didn't ask about last night, or what transpired last night. Although she didn’t have to. The evidence was written all over me – smudged lips, trembling hands, and the ghost of him still clinging to my skin like perfume.

But I was thankful that she didn't make the situation more awkward for me.

I blinked at her, my throat dry. “Give me five minutes.”

However, what came after was something I'd never expect.

I should have known that nothing went smoothly and quietly once I got involved. I should have stayed back at the resort. But now, it was too late.