Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

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Aurora couldn't close her eyes to sleep, not even after applying ointment to her injuries, those were mere physical wounds, the ones her heart sustained refused to be soothed. 

Where was she going to get a million dollars for Sammie's surgery? She couldn't bring herself to request George for help, even if she chewed the little pride she had to ask him, she knew for certain he would never help her, both he and his mistress would only make a scorn of her helplessness. 

She toyed with the wedding band around her finger, the ghost of a smile formed across her lips. 

How foolish had she been! 

Three years ago, George had meant everything to her, her whole world had been centered around him, and she foolishly thought she also meant something to him.

The happiest day in her entire life had been when he had slipped the symbol of their love around her fingers, vowing to love and cherish her for eternity, she had made the promise never to take it off, they would overcome the good and bad times together. The happiness had been so real but it all seemed a lifetime ago now that she tried to recall it. 

She had been that naive nineteen-year-old girl who had believed in fairy tales, prince charming, and happily ever afters. 

Her parents and George's had been great friends, and she had been that girl who had always admired him, he was good-looking and charming, her heart always fluttered when he was around, when he had proposed to her, her joy couldn't have been fuller. 

Her wedding day had been surreal, she was finally Mrs. Peterson! She was going to spend the rest of her life with George!

The tragedy had struck only in the space of a few hours.

A few moments ago she was the happiest bride on the planet and in the next, they had received the terrible blow.

Her parents and George's never made it back to their homes. They were involved in a fatal crash, there had been no survivors, except three-year-old Sammie who had been unconscious. She had been so stuck in grief that for the next few days after the accident, she refused to cry, she wouldn't believe that her loving parents who had been smiling and congratulating her were gone. After a few days was when the tears came, the pain had been agonizing, she leaned towards George, so they would share their grief together, the result she got had been shocking. 

He had blamed her for the tragedy, calling her bad luck and how his parents would have been alive only if he hadn't married her. She had wept bitterly that night, she also couldn't fault George, he had said those awful words in hurt, he surely didn't mean them.   When he had continued to distance himself from her, she had thought he still needed more time to mourn the loss of his parents, people deal with hurt differently and with time he would finally look at her.  

She had no one in that period except Cassandra, her best friend, and only support, she was always there whenever she needed someone to talk to, she was Aurora's listening ear whenever she cried bitterly about how cold George still was towards her even six months after the funeral. Aurora might have committed suicide if not for the support she received from Cassandra in those Crucial times and also Sammie whose very life depended on her, he was only three. 

A year after, both she and George were still like strangers living in the same house, she resumed her work in the parlor as a beautician, that was her only means of taking care of herself and Sammie since George prefers to spend all day with his bottles of alcohol. 

Then that fateful day, every hope she held in her heart concerning her relationship with George was sent crashing, not even the pieces of it could be merged. 

She had forgotten some of her instruments at home as she left in a hurry, she also hadn't expected George to be home that day since he loved spending all his time at the local bar just down the street. 

She heard the strange noises, thinking George was in some kind of danger, she had run without thinking, shoving the door of his bedroom open, only to get the shock of her life.

George and Cassandra were in George's room, both completely naked on the bed and had been too immersed in their love making to realize her presence. 

The shock had left her completely still, a loud cry from the heart-shattering pain that threatened to rip her in two had sent the couple apart.

She had only been able to utter a word out of her cold dry lips and the raw torment that spread across her heart like hot burning acid.

"Why?" 

A question directed at the two people who had cheated her the most.

Her best friend whom she had thought would be her rock in crises, and her husband who had taken those vows with her.

To love...

To cherish...

Forever...

The fairy tale world was crashing before her eyes and there was nothing she could have done to stop it, and with it was the love.

Their affairs didn't end, it only gave them more boldness since they no longer had the fear about her finding out. 

Aurora straightened to turn off the TV,  her eyes were dry, maybe it was because there was no tear left to shed, or her heart was so accustomed to the pain that it has grown numb.

She had thought the TV would provide distraction since she couldn't sleep, the newscaster was talking about some powerful business tycoon who has recovered from an accident after many months and how much of a miracle it was.

Her mind drifted to Sammie, she wished she would also get that sort of a miracle, even if she lost everything, she couldn't lose her little brother to the chill hands of death. She had already lost everything, It would be too much if she lost the one person who held the meaning of life to her.  She knew that she wouldn't be able to survive if he also left her.

It would kill her.