GOING TO LOSE YOU FOREVER! CHAPTER 6

Manager Kim retreated, his distrustful eyes widening. His mind reeled trying to understand what she'd stated. "You're telling me someone did this intentionally Valeria?"

Valeria nodded, went back to sobbing. "Yes. I did not know. I did not know it too late. Now I—I know what they've done. I could have been stopped, I swear to, Manager Kim. I tried to, I had to, but it wasn't enough. Now. now they are dead."

Her crying tore across the still night, and her entire body tensed with the weight of the world.

"Valeria…" Manager Kim whispered, his voice weighed with sympathy. "Who would do this to you? Who would want to destroy you?"

Valeria winced, her own face mirroring the desperation within. "I don't know what happen… but I didn't do it. I didn't do it Manager Kim," Valeria stuttered, her voice shaking.

She again shuddered from him and screamed at the top of her voice.

Valeria's sobs shook her body as her words became more hysterical, fractured, frantic. The weight of her shame, the crushing load of her mistakes, was suffocating her.

"I've hurt so many, Manager Kim. So many due to what happened," she cried over her tears, her trembling fists balled at her chest. "It was not meant to be like this. I did not mean to hurt anyone. I just wanted to go home, to leave all the dirt behind. But now. now I cannot face what I have done."

She caught her breath while she talked, her words running into a bewildered pile of feeling. She could not stop crying, stop shaking. Valeria's tears ran unstoppably, spilling from her like a stream she was powerless to stop.

"I did not do it. I promise, I didn't. I just never intended to do this Manager Kim," she moaned, her throat raw, the pain of her loss nearly suffocating her. "But I cannot reverse it. I cannot restore Vanessa and her baby. I cannot make it like before."

She let out a cry that rang out across the empty parking lot. Manager Kim stood stock still, looking at her in silence, his mouth full of words that would not be uttered. He'd witnessed hundreds of models' tears, clients'—he'd seen them all, a hundred times, but this was different. This wasn't for losing a job, a crown, a title. This was for the destruction of one's own hand to their own soul.

"I've lost everything," Valeria whispered, her eyes moist as she sat back from him a little, wiping them dry with the back of her hand. "Kc was right… I can't make them come back. I can't reverse it. Nothing that I do will make them come back. I know that now." Every word was heavy with sorrow, each one dropping from her lips like a knife to her heart.

Manager Kim breathed deeply, his head whirling. He did not know what to think. She was guilty, yes. She had killed. But standing before him now, she was not the same woman who had marched those catwalks. She was not the same woman who had been hard and unyielding in her climb to fame. She was shattering. She was hollow.

And in the bitter reality, even with the forgive-me-not-after consequences, he couldn't help but not entirely hate her. She wasn't the same woman he used to know.

"I do notice you didn't wish for anything like this to have occurred," Manager Kim tried to say, gently now but with still some lingering echo of his pain. "But look, Valeria. the fact remains, everything has happened now. All hurt inflicted; harm that cannot be fixed inflicted."

Valeria nodded, her tears falling only harder because of what he had told her. "I know. I know. I do not even know how to live with this. How do I go on living after what I've done?" She whispered, gasping for air that cut short her words. "I do not deserve to live after this. I do not deserve any of this."

Her words hung in the air, thick and heavy, and there was quiet as neither spoke a word. The quiet between them was stifling with the magnitude of what had happened—the lives lost, the irreparable damage.

"I tried to stop," Valeria went on, shaking her head so hard that the words came tumbling out in a crazy mix. "I tried, I swear I tried." I braked hard, I tried to turn away. But it was all just moving so fast, I couldn't get it to slow down. And then. I hit them. I hit her. And I don't even know how to deal with myself anymore. I don't know how to make it better. I don't know how to make me better Manager Kim."

She pressed her face into her hands, the pain of the tears still dripping, commingling with the sweat and dirt on her face. She wished it away. She wished to melt into the darkness and never return.

Manager Kim pitied her, yet at the same time knew there was nothing that could be done. Not any longer. Like they had been caught in the middle of a hurricane, and were unable to escape.

"I know this is insane, Valeria, but you have to prepare yourself for what's going to be," Manager Kim breathed, attempting to be logical. "You can't push it away. No matter how hard you wish it never occurred, no matter how much you cry, it occurred. And you have to prepare yourself to live with the aftereffects."

Valeria shook her head again, shaking her entire body in great gulps of tears. She knew. She was aware that she was not leaving it behind her. That time when she got into the vehicle and the second when she clutched this steering wheel in her hands and struggled with everything she had to slam the brakes on, she lost it. She was a killer. It was no means of evasion possible.

The guilt was choking her from the inside out. She was feeling sick as if all those things that the girl had done were bringing her death.How was she ever going to look at herself in the mirror again after all that she had done? She felt guilty, she sobbed, "I'm so sorry," her voice cracking as the tears streamed down.

She wept bitterly.

Her apology rang empty. Sorry did not restore Vanessa and her baby to her. Sorry did not mend the damage that had been done. Sorry did not restore what she had destroyed in her own life.

Manager Kim looked at Valeria with a spark of anger, his eyes burning with frustration, sympathy and grief. He wanted to save her, to take her away from the bottom of the despair pit that she was in, but he was aware that there was nothing to mend anymore.