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Having been instructed by the doctor to rest the entire day, I lay on the bed, hoping for a miracle to get me out of that mansion. It was a wish made in vain. I knew really well that nobody was going to help me with escaping my circumstances.Defeated, I shut my eyes. It was then that I recalled my very first and sweet encounter with Noah. I wasn’t sure why my mind raced back to that moment. Maybe it was because I wanted to think about the man I once loved. I wanted to assure myself that Noah wasn’t as vicious as he was trying to be. There was still some good left in him.Within Noah, there must be some part that resembled him from the past. The part that must’ve protested when he had hurt me the previous night. The sweetness of the relationship that we had shared previously couldn’t have been so easily poisoned by his newly generated hatred.The very first time I saw him was during middle school. He usually used to keep to himself, but interacted with others once in a while. That was
“Where did that man that loved me go?” I questioned, lying beneath Noah.With undeniable seriousness, he replied, “You killed him.”“I never did anything to hurt you. You chose to place your faith in bogus evidence that was delivered from a suspicious source,” I denied all charges of being responsible for our fall-out.Grabbing my jaw, he asked me, “What proof do you have to discredit the pictures that I had received in which you were clearly lying naked beside a man?”“I have none but my word for it,” I responded, staring him in the eyes. “Since you are aware of how much I’ve always loved you, you must know better than to accuse me of something that I could never do to you.”Shaking his head in disbelief, the man further asked, “You want me to take your word against concrete proof of a photograph? How foolish do you think I am?”Before I could put forward any more arguments, his phone began ringing. I thought he would finally go away to answer it. The man, however, didn’t leave my sid
Gentle caresses on the head combined with a soft-toned question about my well-being was enough for me to assume that Noah mightn’t hate me as much as I had thought. Unbothered by my nakedness and my condition, I answered him while looking at him with a hunger that suggested a yearning to be loved.Without ridiculing me about my desire, he continued to shower me with gentleness. There, however, was another question that came my way. Appearing more disappointed than hurt, he wondered why I gave up on something as beautiful as our relationship, claiming there was no way I would find a love like that again.“I didn’t,” I responded, appearing just as displeased with our current situation. “I have only ever loved you.”“What am I supposed to make of the pictures I received and your rendezvous with Seth then?” asked Noah, letting go of me.While I begged the entire evening to be left alone, I could feel my heart break when he finally freed me from his grasp. After leaving me there, he was goi
“You’ve barely eaten anything,” pointed out Seth, as he settled beside me with a bottle of red vine.“I guess I don’t have an appetite,” I answered, struggling to calm myself, as I was still too much involved in recalling what I had undergone during my stay at Noah’s place.Gently, Seth patted the back of my hand and asked me, “What is it that’s troubling you enough to steal your hunger from you?”Before I spoke anything, my eyes brimmed with tears. Since I was certain to have an emotional breakdown while talking about the cause of my distress, I took a deep breath and decided to alter the subject of our conversation instead.“It has certainly been getting hotter, hasn’t it?” I asked, holding back my tears while forcing a smile. “I guess the weather should be held responsible for my lack of hunger.”Seth had been looking into my eyes since the beginning of our conversation. I, therefore, failed to convince him that I was doing alright. If anything, he grew more concerned and grabbed me
“I am asking you to marry me out of a genuine desire to help you out,” said Seth, hoping I would consider his very considerate proposal.Conscious of how my best friend was fond of sacrificing his own joys for other people, I couldn’t selfishly accept his suggestion to make him suffer, “I’ve already ruined my life. I don’t want to do the same to you.”“I don’t understand how marrying you would ruin my life,” argued Seth, unaware of the malignant ways of Noah. “Since you’re my best friend, I don’t see a single reason why it could go wrong.”Finally, sitting down, I began explaining, “Noah plans on destroying not just me, but anybody who would want to help me. If he were to find out I was marrying someone else, he’d dash towards my parents and tell them everything that had transpired between us.”“There’s a really strong possibility for that since he’s a vindictive person,” agreed Seth, holding his chin in his hand.I knew that it was a futile endeavour to spend our time contemplating a
The culprit soon joined us in the conversation as well. The signs of hesitation in his face on coming back into the guest room proved his guilt to me. Instead of continuing the conversation, I excused myself and requested Seth to join me.Once, we were in a separate room, I asked him about Anne, “Why did you tell her about me staying in your apartment?”“Because she has been calling me incessantly to get some information on you,” revealed Seth, believing he had done the right thing. “She cried a lot. I couldn’t sit idly and watch her grieve your disappearance like that.”“She will now tell everyone about my whereabouts, including Noah,” I said with visible signs of distress on my face. “If he were to find out that I’d taken refuge in a guy's apartment, he wouldn’t appreciate it.”“Why are you so afraid of him? Am I not with you?” questioned Seth, not realizing the danger that he had put both of us in.Placing my head over my hand, I told him, “You’ve certainly made a grave error. I wo
Convincing my sister to leave wasn’t an easy task. It took a lot of assurances about my safety and well-being. She visited us every day. She was assured that I required her care to navigate through the challenges of life. As an older sibling, she had the necessary audacity to think like that. I, however, declined all help.A little annoyed, I crashed on the bed, too exhausted to worry about changing clothes. It didn’t take much for me to fall asleep. I was assured to get up the next morning until I heard a few sharp knocks on my bedroom door.“Who is it?” I asked, rubbing my eyes, tiresomely.“Seth,” answered the man, and then sought my permission to enter my bedroom.I allowed him to get inside and then got into a sitting position. Just like a responsible father, he came towards my bed and demanded me to wake up and join him for dinner. Since I was too tired to even move, I told him that I had already eaten.“Are you sure?” asked Seth in a suspicious tone, for he knew I never ate anyt
I didn’t see anybody outside the window the next morning. The man had completely disappeared into the thin air. Since I had seen the silhouette of that man quite clearly the previous night, I knew it wasn’t some hallucination. Somebody was actually there, staring at me in the middle of the night.Last night’s horrific images didn’t leave my mind. I appeared a little disturbed by the same when I joined Seth for breakfast. He, thus, couldn’t stop himself from addressing the same, “Didn’t you have a good night's sleep yesterday?”“No, I didn’t,” I responded, resting my weary head on my hands. “I saw somebody standing outside the window.”“Could’ve been some drunkard,” argued Seth, pleading with me to eat something.I ate a little sandwich and some hard-boiled eggs before grabbing my bag and preparing to leave. Before I could move out of the door, Seth reminded me to call him in the case of an emergency. Since I didn’t want to hear another lecture on my inability to prioritize my safety,
The morning sunbeams were streaming through the bedroom windows, warm and golden, that covered everything with a soft glow. I slept in a bit later than usual, enjoying the serenity that had become a constant in my life. Life had changed in so many ways, and for the first time in what felt like forever, I was finally happy.I turned to my side and smiled at Seth, still sleeping beside me. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, his face relaxed, and his hand rested near mine as if he unconsciously sought me even in his dreams. This was my life now—this love, this stability, this sense of belonging.A soft flutter in my stomach made me smile even wider. The secret I had been carrying for weeks was growing stronger, more real, and soon I would share it with Seth. This thought filled my heart with equal parts of excitement and nervousness, but mostly joy.I slipped out of bed without waking him, padding into the kitchen. The house was quiet, the silent kind that makes you feel at home
~Noah’s pov~The walk back to my apartment seemed to stretch endlessly. My feet moved in a mechanical sequence, one in front of the other, but my mind went round and round, reenacting the scene at Christie and Seth's house. Her words echoed louder than the traffic, louder than the distant hum of the city."I don't belong to you. I never did."I had been so sure—so certain—that if I just showed up, if I just made her see what we had, she would remember. That she would feel the same pull, the same ache that I had carried with me since the day we parted. But she hadn't. Her gaze had been steady, her voice firm, as she told me that she had moved on. That the new Christie didn't need me. Didn't want me.When I finally reached my apartment, I sank onto the couch without bothering to turn on the lights. The dim glow of the streetlamp outside cast long shadows across the room, fitting for how I felt inside.It was the first time in years that I allowed myself to think—really think—about every
I heard a knock. It was sharp and insistent against the quiet rhythm of our morning. I was at the sink, washing dishes, while Seth worked on something at the table. The sound jarred me, and for an instant, I hesitated. Something about it—urgent, almost aggressive—put me on guard."I will get that," Seth said, already standing up from his seat.I quickly dried my hands and trailed after him, wondering and afraid. He opened the door, and I was to confront the last person I could have expected to meet- Noa.He looked exactly as I recalled him: tall, broad-shouldered, blonde hair tousled. There was something in his eyes, though, that I had never seen before: desperation.Christie, he whispered aloud, his voice low but fervent, his eyes fixed hard on mine.I froze as if my breath was physically caught in my throat. It was to see a ghost, a fragment of a life that no longer exists for me. Seth tensed up beside me, his grip on the door's edge tightening."Finally, Noah," I said, my voice cra
The restaurant was warm and dimly lit. A faint aroma of garlic and freshly baked bread clung to the air. Seth sat across from me, as calm and steady as always, his fingers lightly tapping against the base of his wine glass. I studied him discreetly: a sharp line of his jaw, a slight crease between his brows when he was lost in deep thought. He looked utterly, amazingly tired, as if he wanted tonight different, better.I also wanted it.The past weeks were turbulent, and therefore a jumbled mass of feelings that I couldn't make sense of.Memories I thought I'd long since buried—the evanescent meetings with Noah, leftovers from a life that had belonged to someone else—emerged now to haunt me at odd moments. So long I had harbored these memories, allowing them a slice of myself. Now sitting here with Seth, I see just how much they took.Christie?" Seth broke into my thoughts, his voice soft but tinged with angst.I blinked, realizing that I had silently stared at him. "Sorry," I said qui
Seth had come down with a fever recently. Illness had washed the colour from his cheeks and put shadows under his eyes. More than his look, though, the silence that crept in during those days seemed to live in my head: distance, but not out of malice. More out of fear.I hovered by the door of our bedroom, hesitant to step inside. Seth had asked me to come in, his voice steady but with an edge of something I couldn’t quite place. Resignation, perhaps? Pain? I couldn’t tell. The thought sent a shiver down my spine. This was the man who had been my anchor, my unwavering support, and now he seemed so… tired.I entered at last, and he sat on the edge of the bed. His shoulders were slumped, heavy with a weight I didn't understand yet. He looked at me then, his dark eyes softer than usual but unmistakably determined. My stomach tightened at the look."Christie," he said, his voice calm but strained. "We need to talk."My heart sank. Those words—they were never good. They heralded endings, s
Walking home with Noah, I felt a lightness in my chest that I hadn't felt in so long. It was as if a weight had been placed upon one shoulder and then, in effect, had flipped to the other, if only for a fleeting moment. I laughed at something he said; in this case, not really listening to what he said, but to the comfort enfolding us. It was a cool evening air, adorned with a soft breeze that brushed my cheeks, and streetlights softly lit the path before us. I knew I should not have agreed to walk with him. I knew this was wrong. But Noah had this strange pull on me, something that was beyond explanation and resistant to stopping.His presence felt familiar and cozy, and at this moment I cleared all the mess and madness from my mind. I let myself enjoy it, let myself pretend everything was easy and matter-of-fact, despite knowing deep inside of me that it wasn't.I should have stepped back when approaching that house. Reality was slowly sinking in: where and what I was doing stood rig
The air was crisp in the afternoon, and I had to leave the workplace, my mind buzzing with routine as it has just completed. It was an ordinary day in all aspects, yet it felt off about it somehow. I don't know if it was the heavy clouds that hung low in the sky, threatening to break and pour rain anytime, or maybe it was the strange heaviness that I had been carrying with me these past few days—the weight that I couldn't explain. Seth has been so patient and loving, but I still felt. unsettled about something.I wasn't expecting to see him again-Noah. It had been unsettling enough the last time we met, but there he was, literally standing by the aisle of the same departmental store I wandered into, tossing items into a basket as if this were something absolutely normal in his world. My heart skipped a beat the moment I recognized him. It had resulted in betraying my body with a flush of heat that I couldn't ignore. I tried to calm my breathing, try and remind myself of everything Set
As we walked into that house that night, my brain would still glisten with the words spewed by Seth. All that weight, all that heaviness - Noah and those lies, manipulation, twisted web which life has become. My chest felt like it was stuck in some heavy fog, where nothing could be distinguished clearly, nothing trusted as what was thought to be known. Even Seth, the man who had been there for me, seemed at a distance somehow. The puzzle he'd given me, it seemed, was not pieced back together either; no matter how very hard I tried, those pieces wouldn't mesh.Seth treated me gently when he brought me home, like fragile glass that might break if one breathed too hard on it. And in his eyes, I saw the worry, the sadness, the hope that maybe, just maybe, this was the night that might change things between us. I had seen him trying everything to make me feel special, make me smile, and a part of me wanted to give him what he so desperately needed: a sign that I was coming back to him. Tha
I thought Seth was taking a leave from work for spending the day with me, which rather seemed to be a sweet gesture, but deep inside, upset me. We had been so tensed against each other lately without either of us being able fully to articulate what was nagging; it would always hang there in mid-air like an invisible barrier. While I would have liked to dissuade him from leaving, at the same time, I could not reject him. Seth had tried hard to make things be normal by bending over backward and doing all in his power; the least I could do was try to meet him halfway.We went out to a great little restaurant. It had a warm, cozy atmosphere. The low illuminations were rich in earth tones. After all, there isn't a setting more perfect for anyone who ever wanted to feel at ease. Couples were scattered all over the room, some laughing, some whispering low over glasses of wine, and it was one of those scenes-the kind of atmosphere which usually lulled me into a state of peace, but tonight mad