“So, have you made up your mind to forgive him?” Estrella asked, trailing towards Sia’s lounge on her room balcony.
It’s been two days since Lucas spilled the truth to Sia and she asked him to give her some time to process things.
Truth is, she’s hurting knowing that it wasn’t as easy as she thought it was for Lucas back them.
She had spent days, weeks, months, and years loathing and raging against someone who was perplexed on how his uncle suddenly made him make such a decision.
She spent time looking and mapping out ways to make him pay for an offense he didn’t commit. No, Lucas isn’t at fault here. He did what every other human out there would have done. Keeping legacies is the closest way he could make his parents proud wherever they are.
So, Sia can’t label the blame on him. She’d admitted inwardly that she would have done the same thing he did. But Sia can’t get over the fact that she’s the architect of Lucas’s self-loathe.
After all he said two days ago, Sia got a read of the feelings roving in his eyes and imagined what he’d feel knowing he couldn’t keep up to his parents’ expectations.
Though Lucas tried to wipe it off and endow himself with a rigid exterior, still Sia knows the man beneath this façade. Lucas is one who loves to keep to his word so he definitely must have felt bad seeing the company dwindling and his parents’ villa taken from him.
Sia didn’t mention being the one who bought the villa, she just lay there, crying.
Today would have been different if the events of six years ago didn’t occur.
They lost their love for each other.
They lost the trust they built and their baby.
Sia was too pained that she couldn’t let thoughts about her dead child rivet her mind. It’s one painful memory she decided to bury and never dredge up. Aside from that, other memories, and other horrendous events that happened will stay rooted in her mind.
She’ll never forget.
Immediately Lucas left to give Sia some space, she clutched her phone and called Estrella to spend some time with her. To find solace in her company. All the while Estrella has been here, she didn’t bring up the topic.
She’d leave Sia to wallow in her own thoughts.
But tonight, she feels she has accorded Sia enough time to process things so she decided to bring it up now.
Wiping all trickle of tears off her face, Sia sent a cherubic smile mingled with pains at Estrella.
“I can’t stay mad forever, you know. Lucas had his own share of the pains I passed through. I mean, it wasn’t his fault from the onset. I loved him, so much, I doubted he could do such a thing to me. I knew with my last breath he loved me. Lucas promised me forever….”
“And you still love him, Sia.” Estrella sputtered, cutting Sia off. “Sia, you two have been through a lot. And this is what those destined for each other experience in life. Yes, Lucas took the wrong steps but you wouldn’t be the woman you’re today if you two didn’t separate.”
Sia inclined her head in a nod, agreeing with what Estrella said to her. Fate has its way of doing things. Yes, they wouldn’t have been immersed in sorrow, agony, and misery if they didn’t separate. But she wouldn’t be the woman she had always longed to become if they didn’t separate.
What she is today is what her mother had always wanted her to be. This is the life she wanted Sia to experience. To be a strong woman. One who doesn’t cling to people for support, to not be one who is frail and cowers at the mercy of others. No, she wants Sia to be strong because she wasn’t. She wants Sia to never let people subdue her ’cause she let that destroy her life. Hence, she doesn’t want it to shatter Sia.
Here she is today, popular, powerful, and wealthy. Today, everyone in the State has her name on the seam of their lips.
“I believe fate planned this itself. Fate set you on the part where you and Monson could meet. Fate made him marry you. Fate made him change your life for the better. Sia it’s true you didn’t achieve these from scratch but it’s something not many out there could achieve. This is fates work.”
Estrella sprinkled soft smiles at Sia who looked at her, drinking in all her words, contemplating on it. Indeed, fate had everything planned.
“Thank you, girlfriend. I can’t appreciate less.” Sia murmured.
Estrella cupped her cheeks and looked down at her.
“Sia, open your arms and let the man you love snuggle into them. Break the walls of your heart so you can retrieve the love you lost. The hope you lost in life and the faith you lost in humanity because these still exist and this time around, it’ll come back in spades.”
Hunkering low, Estrella hoisted Sia’s head up and sputtered kisses on it, smoothing Sia’s hair with her fingers.
Looking up at her friend, Sia smiled. “I wasn’t wrong the day I choose you as my best friend. You know my heart. You saw me broken despite all the façade I tried to put on and you’ve helped me fix it. Thanks, Estrella.” Sia splayed her arms around Estrella’s, giving her a warm embrace that lasted for what seemed like forever.
“Friends forever!” Cheering, Estrella brought their glass of wine and handed one to Sia, then they clinked it together with a huge grin on their faces.
**
Sauntering back to his apartment complex, Lucas pressed the panel button of the elevator that was on the verge of slamming close and stepped inside.
He’s feeling tipsy better than the last two days he came home drunk. Since he told Sia his side of the story and she requested some time alone to process things, Lucas had been going to a pub, boozing until he gets woozy to forget not only the pains he feels but also the pains he caused Sia. But today, he took one bottle as he has a virtual meeting with his angel investors.
Shoving into the elevator, Lucas’s eyes collided with Raymond’s. They trade glances for what seemed like a decade before tearing their eyes off each other.
They were submerged in the silence that enveloped the elevator until Raymond got to the third floor.
When he walked out, Lucas began wondering why he walked out on the third floor.
“I thought he stays in my floor? That first time I saw him…well, why do I even care?” He mused as the door slammed close.
There’s this thickness Lucas feels down his throat whenever he spots Raymond which instigates the thought of why ‘Raymond and Hera relate? Who is he to Hera?’
Just as the thought ran through his mind, the elevator fluttered open and he shoved out, heading to his room door as the date he was on the paper rushed through his mind.
‘9-10-2010.’
Lucas flung his door open and ambled into the dark, quiet hallway to his room. On getting there, he heard the swift pattering of water streaming from his bathroom.
Wondering what that could be, Lucas edged to the bathroom door and flipped it open immediately, only to meet the shock of his life.
“Danika!” The name ran off his lips.