“What’s wrong? Your injury is acting up, isn’t it?” Elias cried, a little alarmed.He chopped the apple into small pieces and reached out to feed Mimi himself. It was too intimate to her, so she turned away and avoided him.A few days had passed since the surgery, and her injury was already well in its course to recovery. The doctor had expressed surprise and shock at how swimming the process was, as it implied none to very few side-effects that could plague her future. Anyone else in her posi
She loathed the ambiguity. It felt like manipulation.“No, that’s not it,” he said suddenly. But what? Elias did not know. He did not even know what was happening to him. It hurt him to see her in such a feeble, vulnerable, painful state, but he had a feeling it was not a pang of sympathy. Guilt even less so.Mimi frowned. “Oh yeah? Then tell me what it is, Elias. Cut it out with the ambiguity already, man, you’re tormenting me. This sucks! It hurts! I'd rather you reject me outright than this
“Were you really that worried about me?” Mimi asked.Elias nodded. “Honestly, I was just as surprised. I have never panicked over someone like that, and for a long time, Jeanette was the only exception.”Mimi could feel her heart moved, but she was unsure of what it meant. A strange, unidentifiable emotion was filling her chest as she listened.“When I got to the motel and saw those men bullying you, I… I was livid. I felt like killing them right there and then. I wanted to throw myself at th
“I’ve loved you for years, Elias. Like a goddamned idiot! I tended the flames feeding into… this stupid love that will never be reciprocated! And now you think it’s okay to torment me more?”Her tears finally freed themselves.“You can’t keep being so selfish, Elias! I don’t want you to hurt me anymore. You don’t have to care about how I feel. You don’t have to worry if you’re hurting me, and you don’t need to think that my recovery is going to fall apart just because you aren’t watching me. T
The air became oppressive. It was charged as though the air, too, was holding its breath in nervousness. Only the birds’ chirping outside, as they perched beside the windowpane, stopped the room from being engulfed in total silence.Still, as loud as their chirps was Mimi’s own pounding heart. She stared into Elias, gulping, nervous despite herself. This was the first time she became lucid of how mortified she could be of an answer. The dread was in the possibility of hearing the one she least
The only reason she had not leaped into a flight away from here was that her body was too weak to move. There was a disembodied hand in her chest, clutching on her heart without mercy, causing her entire chest to seethe with pain. She hated how much it ached.She wished she could run away to somewhere Elias could not see. He was the man she had loved for years and years, and it was only natural that her latest fear became breaking down in front of him and losing that last, useless remnant of he
“Elias, you are not me. You have no idea just how much I’ve gone through all these years. You and I are fundamentally different people. You find no problem staying by Jeanette’s side and working tirelessly for her in silence. But you can’t ask the same from me. My heart aches just from seeing you… which is why I want it to stop. And to do that, I have to let go.”She closed her eyes, her voice plunging into abject melancholy. “I’m begging you, Elias. If you don’t love me, let me go. It will set
She was reluctant to face Xavier, but there was no way out of it. He had her secret, and now the only option left was to bargain.The secretary dissembled an unflappable demeanor to belie just how anxious she was. She really dreaded Xavier manufacturing a controversy out of something as trivial as her bracelet.Xavier’s lips broke into a smile as he watched the secretary approaching him, accompanied by the sounds of her heels clicking.“Well, well, well! That’s some punctuality. You really ar