I whimpered. They were getting so violent. Violent to the point a lot of people started to gather around us. I felt weak, unaware of what to do. Who could I speak with? Raymond or Ryan?
Ryan seemed even more angry. He pulled Raymond close, hit him about two times. Raymond’s face was already swollen. It looked like a big, fat, red balloon. I felt very terrible, knowing that all this was nothing but my fault.
“Stop, please,” was all I could say. My voice was really low, so of course, I wasn’t expecting them to listen to me.
“How dare you touch her?” He slapped Raymond on the face. A couple of people gasped, which made me even more fearful.
“Serene, do something about this.” One of my old coworkers, Tanya, walked to me, sounding so worried. “Get Mr. Arthur out of here. This is stupid. If this fight continues, the police will arrive. Also, there’s a probability that the media will arrive as well. Besides, what if someone is filming this? It’s gonna ruin the company’s reputation.”
I nodded in agreement. What else could I do?
Taking two steps forward, I tapped Ryan’s arm. As he breathed hard, frowned hard, raced in wrath, he glanced at me. I felt scared to speak to him. He didn’t look like the Ryan I knew.
I gulped in fear. “Please, stop this. I’m fine.”
“You can see what he’s done to me?!” Raymond cried. For some reason, he sniggered as well. “I know why he’s done this. He knows that I’ll eventually be the one to get you, so he’s lashing out his frustration. He’s insecure. He’s—”
“You asshole!” Ryan attempted to hit Raymond again, but I stood in his way. I held his hand which lingered in the air, shaking my head in reproach of whatever he was planning to do.
“Stop this now. That’s okay,” I whispered.
He sighed. “Did you hear what he said? Is he crazy?”
“Ryan, guess you’ll have to keep quarreling with me for a long period. Cause, I’m not ready to let go of my love for her.”
“See…” Ryan pulled me aside, faced Raymond as he kept breathing hard. “If you try to hurt her ever again, I promise to do something worse. I’ll beat you till you pass out.”
“Let’s see—”
“This is a warning to you.” Ryan gripped my wrist. “And, this beating is nothing compared to what I’ll do to you in the future.”
“I’ll see.” Raymond smirked.
“Goodnight.” Adding that, Ryan pulled me towards the elevator. We headed straight to the first floor. And, as soon as we got there, we walked out of the building.
***
I stared down at my fingers, as I placed them on my lap, feeling so, so bad. I didn’t even know whether or not to be angry. Ryan had really had no reason to create such commotion. He could have just asked Raymond to leave me alone. As simple as that.
“I’ll get us something to eat, while you stay inside,” he said.
The long drive had been quite silent. Hearing his voice, I raised my neck to look at him. I scanned my eyes around, then noticed he had driven us to his place. For what reason? This was crazy.
I scoffed, and swallowed my tears. “Why have you brought me here? Huh?”
“I had to take you away from him.” He unbuckled his seatbelt, grabbed his phone from the console box in between us, and glanced at me. “Get down now. You know the code to open my door, right?”
“This isn’t funny.” I looked away, blinking away the tears that made me feel partially blind.
He sighed. “I understand this. I know it’s annoying. Which is the reason I always tell you to stay away from him.”
“No.” I crossed my arms around my chest, turned to him. “Ryan, you understand nothing. Absolutely nothing. If you understood even one thing, you wouldn’t have caused a commotion at Twinkle Stars.”
His jaw clenched, and he gazed at the steering wheel, as if I wasn’t here. “I’m sorry to say this. But, the truth is, you’re the insensitive one.”
“Excuse me?” I glared. He was so annoying.
He turned to me. “You know what? We shouldn’t argue with each other. I’m sorry for attempting to kiss you last night. I know you’re angry about that. Instead of quarreling, we should just hope that things get back to the way it was.”
“In what way?” I asked.
He raked his fingers into his hair, sighed really hard. “I don’t understand why you’re this furious. I was only trying to help you out. Nothing else.”
“Help me out? Help me out by fighting that much? Huh? And then, you bring me to your place?”
“Fine, fine, I’ll take you home instead. Just calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” I retorted. I unbuckled my seatbelt, sniffled. “Wait, what’s your plan? What do you want? You used to be my boss. I get that. But, now that I’m no longer working with you, why can’t you leave my life? You’ve haunted me enough, haven’t you?”
Well, I knew I wasn’t supposed to react this way, but the truth was, I needed to let go of him. Realizing that I had some feelings for him, I felt quite bad. I didn’t want to like him. I couldn’t trust him.
“I’ll just take you home. Fine, if you don’t wanna see me anymore, then, so be it. I won’t visit you anymore. I’m—”
“You’re terrible.” This was definitely getting too much. I should just keep shut.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “I said I’ll take you home. I understand that you’re angry, but please, calm down.”
“Don’t divert from this topic, okay?”
“What topic?” He dropped his jaw. “Alright, do you wanna take a bus instead? If you’re so angry, and can’t stay in the car with me, you can just take a cab or something.”
“Fine!” I spat out. If my anger was equivalent to the temperature of water, I should be cooking in a wrath of 100C. “I’ll leave. But, I need you to know that I know what you’ve done. I’m pretty sure you filmed us that night, so I’d leave Twinkle Stars. You despise Raymond so much to the extent of making me lose my job so he wouldn’t be with the woman he claims he loves. That’s why I said you’re terrible.”
And then, silence was all that moved around us. He gave me a blank expression, which made my heart race so fast. Gosh, what had I said? Again, I’d say, this was the reason I shouldn’t be called “Serene”.
After a while of staring at me, a small, weak and maybe sad smile, plastered on his lips. He held the steering wheel with his left hand, looked away. For some reason, he chortled.
“It’s really upsetting to know that that’s what you think of me,” he finally spoke. His voice was quite low, which was proof that he didn’t acknowledge the words I had sputtered.
“I-I’m sorry,” I said. Not thinking twice, I opened the door, attempting to leave. But, he held my arm back. Before turning back to him, I bit my lip, and cursed underneath my breath.
“Wait,” he ordered.
I gulped, and only listened to him. “Do you need something?” I asked.
He nodded, still not looking at me. “Have you ever been in love before?” That was what came out of his lips.
My hands suddenly felt cold, my heart pounding against my chest. “Y-Yeah,” I stuttered. Why was I nervous? “I have an ex-boyfriend.”
He nodded, and swallowed as if he was fearful. “Whenever you saw him around so many ladies, how did you feel?”
Again, I gulped. “I-I don’t know. He hardly ever stayed around people. He was kind of… boring.”
He looked at me, the small smile no longer on his lips. He looked hesitant, scared and exhausted. His facial expression was really creepy.
“Tonight, I’ll let the coward in me wash off,” he stated.
It seemed like I knew where this conversation was going. But—no. This couldn’t be possible.
“What?” That came out of my lips in a whisper. I was so, so confused and nervous.
He looked down. Turning to me, he cleared his throat. “Serene, I like you. I like you very much.”
Like a startle, I froze, and just stared blankly at him. My brain was making the sound of a trumpet, my other organs dashing around my abdomen. I felt queasy, perplexed, uneasy and… weird.
He shook his head as he fixed his gaze at him. “No, no. I don’t like you. I don’t like you at all.” Wait, what was he saying now? “Cause, as far as I know, this feeling is above what it should be. Serene, I don’t like you. Not at all. Instead, I’m in love with you.”
A strange, high pitched sound hollered in my ears. What did I do next? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I just kept staring, waiting for this dream to come to an end.
Oh me, myself, and I, keep waiting. This should be a dream, or my imagination.
—