CHAPTER THREE

Sabrina’s Pov

It was raining now but I did not care. My legs carried me behind the building, the shadows of the structure providing a temporary respite from the deluge outside. I leaned against the cool, damp wall, allowing the rain to drench me as I slid down to the ground. 

Seeing that I was all alone now, I let the tears flow freely. My shoulders shook with each unstifled sob, bitter tears mingling with the raindrops on my skin.

At that moment, the painful memories of my high school days came rushing through my mind. The biting comments, the ruthless teasing the reminder of my poverty and lack of family, the soul-crushing feeling of being an outcast. All of it came rushing back in vivid detail. And on days like that when I was picked on, it was Coral who stood up for me and defended me from the kids when no one else would.

In the blink of an eye, the past dissolved, and I found myself thrust back into the present, a present where my trusted ally had become my betrayer. The laughter that had once comforted me in the darkest of times now echoed like a mockery. She was on their side now.

But what did I ever do to deserve such embarrassment and betrayal from her? I had only ever been kind towards her and loved her. Why did she have to turn around and suddenly treat me this way?

I continued to sob with raindrops cascading around me in a gentle rhythm. Suddenly, there was a shift in the rain pattern that caught my attention. The rain was no longer falling directly on me, only around my environment. 

Wiping away the tears that had blurred my vision, I looked up with a sense of cautious curiosity, my heart thudding in my chest. There, standing over me, was a man, shrouded in the shadows of the night. In his hand, a black umbrella swayed slightly, shielding me from the rain. Because it was quite dark here, I couldn't see his face. Only his towering height and broad shoulders.

While I was beginning to wonder who he was and why he was interfering in my business, the man shoved his hand into his pocket and brought out a dollar bill note from his pocket, handing it to me.

A frown crossed my face at his action. Why was he handing me money?

“For your tears.” He said. 

My lips curled into a sneer as I regarded him, my former feelings of embarrassment and betrayal giving way to a seething anger that boiled inside of me. A hundred-dollar bill for my tears? Was this some sort of expensive joke?

"Are you for real?" I snorted, my voice heavy with incredulity as I eyed his silhouette which was still shrouded in the dim lighting that concealed his features from my view.

"Are you gonna take it or not?" he replied, his tone unruffled by my reaction. His voice flowed like velvet honey, deep and masculine, yet sweet and seductive, and smooth as silk. 

"Fuck off," I hissed, venom dripping from every syllable as my teeth clenched tight with indignation.

The stranger's shoulders slumped in a gesture of resignation, his hand slipping the hundred-dollar bill back into his pocket as he seemed to accept defeat. But his presence lingered and he paused for a couple of seconds before he spoke again, his voice still surprisingly calm.

"I might not know why you were crying, but it seemed like the party got to you pretty bad.  To be honest, I had to escape the party myself. The pressure was getting to me too."

 I found myself raising my gaze to meet his shadowy form again as if I could discern the features hidden beneath the darkness. His stature was imposing, dominating the space around him. He seemed to sense my attention, and his words flowed again.

"People expect you to fit neatly into the box they've created for you, don't they?" He started. “It can be very suffocating.”

“I know right?” I replied to him, relating to what he was saying this time. People see you as one thing, and when you don't meet their expectations, they can't handle it. They don't see the real you. They see what they want to see, what's convenient for them.

"My mother wants me to marry a girl that I don't even love," he began, the resignation in his voice a telltale sign of a struggle that seemed to mirror my own. "I don't want to marry her, but I don't have a choice. Rich people’s problems, huh?"

I scoffed internally, the absurdity of it all striking a chord in me. Rich people and their dictator parents, indeed.

"You shouldn't marry her if you don't want to," I said to him, offering advice to this stranger, a man I knew little about. But I  proceeded to advise him anyway, the very idea of someone being forced into a loveless marriage sounding utterly ridiculous to my ears.

"I don't have a choice," he replied, his words tinged with a weariness that told me this was a battle he had long since given up on fighting.

I merely nodded, not wishing to press him further on the subject of his forced engagement. There were things he was unwilling to share, and I respected that.

"What about you?" his attention shifted to me, as though he sensed the turmoil raging inside me. "What's your story? Why are you seeking solace in the rain?”

I hesitated for a brief moment, skeptical of opening up and being vulnerable with a completely faceless and nameless stranger. But something about the anonymity of the moment, the hiddenness of our identities, and the knowledge that we might never cross paths again, slowly loosened the knot of resistance within me.

With a deep sigh of surrender, I gave in and started to speak while keeping the details to a minimum.

"I think my best friend might've set me up. She got me to wear a fake dress to the party, and I ended up being the laughingstock of the night. I'm not sure why she would do that, we've never had any big fights or issues before. Or maybe I am just overthinking things and she had no idea that it was a fake.”

Or maybe I was simply just trying to make excuses for her. 

"Did she apologize?" he asked.

"No," I replied, the words tasting bitter on my tongue as I finally allowed myself to accept the truth of Coral's betrayal. "She laughed with the others."

"Then she meant to do it," the stranger continued, his words were a blunt force, delivering a direct hit to the fragile wound in my heart, making it throb with renewed pain. "It wasn't an accident.”

"It wasn't an accident," I echoed, as I allowed the words to sink in, like acid eating away at my soul.

My mind raced, a thousand thoughts and questions colliding with one another. A mixture of confusion and hurt whirled within me.

Why would she do this? Did I ever do something unintentionally to her to deserve this treatment from my own best friend?

 

“What is your name?”  The stranger asked me, breaking me off my thoughts. But as he asked me that question, I got up on my feet, realizing that our conversation was beginning to get too deep and he was going to know my name, thereby breaking the walls and boundaries I had built around us.

“I…I…I think I have to get going now.” I said to him and before he could reply to me, I set off, walking away from under the umbrella and away from the mansion. Thankfully, I had a few dollar notes with me to get a cab. 

And so, I hurried away from the mansion and the stranger in the rain as more tears rolled down my eyes at Coral’s betrayal. 

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