Chrisanna "I won't continue if you don't wanna hear", he says in a lower tone, his gaze lowering."No!" I exclaim, turning to him with a worried grin. "I just needed some time to process this and you're definitely telling me"He's still struggling to speak. It's indeed a lot and I'm wondering how he kept this secret for so long and for how long that bastard must be grooming a literal minor like him. "It was going fine. I was only meeting him and talking to him. It felt good actually. But I was pretty clear that I didn't want anything more than this for now. I was aware of the situation. He's an adult and I'm a minor. I didn't want him to even touch me differently and he was really okay with it first", his voice becomes heavy and I can clearly see where this is going.I'm definitely not ready for it and I'm praying hard for my assumptions to come false.I hold his hand with an assuring squeeze. He gulps down and continues. "One day I went to meet him in the old maintenance like ever
Chrisanna I could manage to bring Eric to the school. He got a bit of courage after talking his heart out with me. It's indeed the best therapy to just talk. "Sometimes we just snap at a silly problem", Samuel says to Eric as we walk through the corridor. "I bet you were not even thinking about the college two weeks ago"Eric nods."Just relax. No one exactly knows what they are capable of. You'll get it", Samuel adds.We lied to him. I LIED to him. It sucks. But there's nothing we could do. We told him Eric is disturbed about his dropping grades and it suddenly overwhelmed him. "See you on lunch", Samuel passes me a small smile and squeezes my hand lightly before walking into his English class.I and Eric walk towards the geography class as he lets out a sigh."You okay?" I ask."I'm feeling bad that you had to lie to Samuel for me", he says."It's fine. It would be wrong if the secret was about me. I'm keeping your secret and it has nothing to do with my friendship with Samuel.
Chrisanna"Where did you get the address?" Eric whispers as we hide behind the bushes with our bicycles outside Volkov's house."I sneaked into paa's laptop", I say, keeping my eyes darted on the door. "You did? That must be protected!""Nah. All his passwords are easy to crack if he's your father. Lol! Put the nickname he gave to Mama! Cracked!""You're fucking smart", he exclaims. "But what are we even doing here?""Keeping an eye on that asshole", I tell him."Chrissie!" Eric lets out a deep sigh. "We can't just spy on him and hope for something good""Well, we can", I turn to him. "He's a horrible person and there's no way he's doing everything right in his life. If he can assault someone and blackmail them, he can have more secrets""And what are we supposed to do with them?" he groans."We're gonna do it in his own way", I chuckle and hear the door of the car opening. Looking through the bushes, I watch his car leave. "Darn. We need to follow him", I hurriedly get onto my bicy
SamuelI'm sorry for letting my insecurity question you. I'm sorry for being the overthinker to always fearing that you would find someone better than me.I'm sorry for being jealous of every person you look at the way you look at me. That's all I want to tell her. But I can't.On her balcony, she's sitting on the swing beside me, with her legs crossed and her head on my shoulder. "You okay?" she asks me, pressing her chin against my shoulder. "Yeah", I whisper."You haven't uttered a single word for an hour now", she tells me."Don't you like the way you enjoy the silence together?" I look at the sky, covered with millions of twinkling stars. "Sometimes silence feels good when conversations become vague and weird""Why do you feel like our conversation became vague?" her voice is filled with surprise.Because you're lying to me, firefly. And I don't know why God makes me see it. I wish I never got to know you were lying about certain things. I would love to stay in delusions as I
Chrisanna"WHERE'S MY DRESS?" my scream echoes around the entire villa. "Where's my damn dress, mama!""Ivanna isn't home, sweetie. Hear me out", Fifi says as I have already made a mess all over the room. I'm running out of time. When I came back from the salon, my dress wasn't there. I clearly remember that I left it on the bed. "Your dress accidentally got dirty", Fifi says, making me almost jump out as I surge towards her."What?""Yeah. Lesley came for mopping. She accidentally dropped the cleaning solution onto it. I sent it immediately to the laundry so it doesn't get ruined"No!Heck!No!I feel like dying already because I hunted the dress down after storming into four different malls. It was so perfect just how Samuel might have wanted it. All my excitement and happiness fade away. "Chrissie!" Fifi holds my shoulder. "Sweetie, don't get upset. You have plenty of dresses. You'll look like a princess anything you wear"I slump onto the bed, mumbling. "Samuel would love the g
SamuelChrisanna is fast asleep when I come to the balcony to suck in the fresh air. She asked me what she did wrong. And I told her she didn't do anything wrong. It's me. I'm the problem and it was altogether my fault. Teenagers are stupid.Teenagers with messed up childhood are the problem.That day, I left, not because I thought she was betraying me, not because Dad's words had pushed me to think worse about her. I left because I was scared of how my subconscious started to question her. I was scared to hurt her for the person I was slowly turning into. An insecure one. She didn't deserve that person. The problematic one. All these years, I was blaming her because it seemed to be easy to live with it. But deep down, I knew I blamed myself all the way and never thought I was worthy of her. Every day. Every night. I thought about her.She was never out of my head. Never once. I would hear her voice in the background when I would talk to Uncle Scott. I would see his pictures on h
Chrisanna"Her name's Charlotte", Eric says, showing me the picture on his phone. "She's—""Hot, right?" he grins as I throw him a you-are-impossible look. "Kidding. She's lovely, beautiful, smart, and sweet. And British! Lord""I knew you always had a thing for British men. Now, it's British women too?" I say, swiping to the next picture where she's sitting on his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck.They look happy. "I got to know that after I met Charlotte", he leans back to the headboard as we are seated on my bed. He had a smile on his face the whole time when he was talking about her. It was really rare."How long have you been dating her?""A month almost", he says. My eyes enlarge. "Holy moly, himbo. A month? A whole month? This is the fucking longest relationship you have ever been""I didn't realize that though", he rolls his eyes. Eric has always been facing all the dating issues. Especially with women. They basically didn't like the fact that he is bi. And with men
SamuelMy forehead stays pressed against the wall as the freezing water descends on my body. I don't exactly remember how long I have been inside but I never felt this worse before. I'm angry.I'm ashamed.I feel guilty. Even though all this time, I knew Chrisanna never did anything wrong, I still blame myself for that only moment when I had such the worst thoughts about her and Eric. The last ten days I spent in insecurity before the prom and on the prom night. I can't believe I doubted their relationship even for a second. I hated myself already. Now, I hate myself more. Even today, when I walked inside and saw her being so happy around Eric, my nerves wrenched again, although I have no grudge against Eric either. I never had. I never had this anger on him that I used to have on any other guy who would be close to her. It just made me feel bad about myself that Chrisanna could never breathe in relief around me. Even now. I can sense how careful she is to talk to me. She choo
Hello, everyone. This month has been a really bad one. After I posted the previous chapter almost 10 days ago, I was doing pretty well. None of my family members nor I have ever suffered from Dengue before which is why I had no idea that after the fever decreases abruptly there is a higher chance to have a very bad fever after a couple of days. I wasn't fully recovered. Had to get admitted in the hospital. I really tried my best to use my free time to write something but it was next to impossible. It's been two days since I have come back home and doing pretty well. But due to a gap in writing, I'm unable to get motivated to write the next chapter. Must be an absurd request but please let me know in the comments how many of you are still with me, waiting for the rest of the chapters, so I can have some boost in motivation and push myself to finally get back on track. Thanks in advance for all the good wishes. Hugs?
ChrisannaYou know what's the worst part of this phase? I know every bit of change happening in my body and my mind but people around me— who love me— are trying their best to hide those changes I may not see but feel. I snuggle into Samuel's arms after breaking the kiss and exhaling deeply as his grip tightens. I feel his heart racing, faster than ever.He thinks I didn't notice anything. But I did feel everything. I felt the sudden change in his voice which he tried to hide. I felt his hands suddenly moving more gently than ever as if he was scared to touch my hair, as if he feared the more he'll mess with them the more they'll come out. He thinks he can prevent them from falling anymore. Maybe. But he can't.I know everything. I feel everything.I feel him. He can't hide. He can't lie. "You're feeling well? We can cancel the date if you want to", he asks me, squeezing my shoulders gently. "No. I wanna go""You sure""Hmm", I lift my head and smile at him. *We spent the rest of
Samuel"I'm sure I was born only to meet her", I say, smiling down, midway through my speech— among the group settling in a circle during the weekly meeting. "Every good thing that happened in my life— all revolved around her. I just don't know how that's possible. I believe that I was born for her. Just to meet her and love her. There's no damn purpose in my life. There haven't been any"My breath hitches as I look around at all the smiling faces."Do I look better to you all? Like better than how I was when I came to the first meeting?" A tinge of anticipation stirs me up. "I just don't want to go back to the worst phase of my life anymore. And I'm so fearful that it would happen if I keep watching her struggling. It's very painful—" I struggle to speak.Strangely, it didn't happen ever since I started coming to the meetings and I always talked fluently.As I struggle to speak, my phone rings. Even though it's not allowed to carry phones while in the meeting, I'm allowed as I discus
ChrisannaIt's like a script they have all memorized. "Line dance", Uncle Colton says, getting up and walking towards the music player. "Darn. I hate it!" Eric snarls. "All dancing like soldiers""It's fun. We do it every time in family gatherings", Judson says, flickering a smile. "Seriously! Are you a 50-year-old in the body of a 17-year-old?" Eric grimaces, making Judson silent."Stop bullying him, Eric", Kylee shoots him a glare."Opposite attracts— shit is real", Charlotte laughs her lungs out, taking sips from her drink."Okay, you all", Uncle Colton turns the music on. "Get into a line"As everyone takes place for a line dance, Samuel helps me to get up."You don't need to match and move that much, okay? Just enjoy", he says. "Don't stress" I nod and notice a few people from the park have also joined. The environment seems to come alive with the rhythm of the dance as I weakly copied Charlotte's steps who is standing before me and briefly look at Samuel beside me. He has a
ChrisannaThe sun-kissed park provides a picturesque setting as the sprawling green meadow unfolds in front of me. Towering trees with long branches surrounding us leaves gently rustling in the soft breeze. The vibrant colours of blooming flowers dot the landscape.I inhale deeply, swallowing the canvas before my eyes. It all seems so new and mesmerising. I haven't inhaled fresh air for months. More than half of the last five months were spent within the four walls of the hospital and I also didn't wanna step out.I miss my old life so much. I look yards away, taking every inch of the view, watching kids playing around, families conversing and groups of friends laughing aloud."It's really hot over here", Samuel comes beside me, blocking the sun rays straight hitting my face as how tall he is. I look up at him and smile, finding Zoey curled around his neck. "I missed this heat""In that case, I think you had enough of it", he slides his hand behind my back and I keep smiling at Zoey
Chrisanna Stage III. As hard as it is to accept, this is the reality. It's been weeks since I've been back to the hospital. Again.And it sucks. I'm going through radiation therapy now. Even though my breasts were removed, cancer spread beyond that area to nearby lymph nodes surrounding tissues, chest walls, and skin.My skin burns, itches, and aches most of the time. I feel tired even pushing my eyelids and sometimes it's even harder to breathe. Although my stitches are gone, leaving those lifelong scars, the soreness and fatigue still wake me up every night. But now I have learned not to cry out. I have learned how to live with this discomfort and pain. Among everything, my life is just standing still. It seems like I'm stuck in a loophole where the world is running at a fast pace and I'm just standing there. I don't feel the same anymore. I'm not the same. The changes haunt me. I find it hard to accept myself. And every time I try to speak my heart out, I can't. They don't
SamuelChrisanna had to spend the next week in the hospital. As she preferred, Aunty Ivanna was there for her most of the time. I rarely got to spend time with her as the nurses and doctors had to check on her every half an hour. She might need a few weeks to recover from the surgery before the radiation therapy starts. According to the doctors, she'll need more than a year to get past all that and it depends on her recovery whether she'd need more therapy or not. However, I'm more concerned about the woman she's turning into— completely different from what she was. She barely speaks to me. She just stares at me whenever I am there as if she's talking to me through her eyes and I feel dumb and desperate when I can't bring myself to understand what she might want to say.I try to be there for her as much as I can but I wish I could do more. To ensure I'm in a better state of mind, I regularly attend my therapy sessions. Connor introduced me to a group and I have attended two meetings
ChrisannaNo amount of willpower, confidence, and support can prepare you for this— no matter how strong you try to be— it's never that easy. The day I was diagnosed with this disease again, I was so sure that I would overcome it— again. If a seven-year-old child can fight, then a twenty-five-year-old grown-ass woman can definitely fight and win. But little did I know that, it's not the same— and never that easy.The more I was sucked into this illness, the more I realized it's not the same. It's more painful than anything else. Either I lose something that defines my identity, or I lose myself. Either way, I have to lose. Spacing out of reality, I look down at my hands, clasping and unclasping them as my eyes dart to the wedding ring, glistening on my finger. My thoughts slip away from one direction to the other one as Samuel's face flashes in front of my eyes. I haven't seen him for two days— ever since I was admitted to the hospital for surgery. I met no one as I requested them
SamuelI wasn't honestly expecting something like that. There's barely any word I can form to speak when she stares straight into my eyes with a blank face. Her voice barely shakes and her gaze doesn't even flinch.This is not anything like Chrisanna. Chrisanna is all about expressing. She doesn't believe in being or looking emotionless— cold and rough. She should have been nervous, scared, or hurt while saying such a huge thing to me. At least— to me!I had seen changes in her behaviour lately but it's something painful to watch.She keeps staring at me, waiting for an answer when I was completely spaced out. I shrug, clearing my throat."Okay""It's awful", she doesn't blink— and her voice is ice cold. She should be flinching and groaning in frustration and maybe in anger. There's nothing!"It's not awful", I exclaim, immediately sliding my palm around her jaw. "It's a way to heal you""Yeah. Just throwing away a part of my body isn't awful", she groans, making me unsettled."No.