Chapter 45
Chapter 45 Chapter Forty Five
“She once had a child?” I thought to myself and my b*dy stiffened a bit. Surely never expected that
update.
When could this have happened? Was it during those three interminable years when she had
vanished without a trace? But despite the amount of questions I had, I still tried to actposed
and I schooled my expression into one of indif-
ference.
I focused on the almost invisible ripples forming on the surface of my coffee as I slowly stirred the
steaming liquid.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I said tly with nonchnce.
To be honest, I was mostly not interested in hearing any stories about her murky past even though
at some point before, I used to be interested in it. What purpose would it serve to dredge up all of
those stories anyway?
In the background of where we both sat I could hear voices and clinks of cut- lery, but it all faded
like far away murmurs as Be’s eyes drove like nails into me. Her fingers curled around her own
cup and she slowly took a sip before
rolling her eyes.
“I’m going to tell you anyway,” she shrugged.
I also shrugged as I sipped my own coffee, turning my attention to the view out- side the café
window, I tried to lose myself in the bustling cityscape, hoping Bel- would take the hint and spare
me the sordid details of her tale.
“Isaac deceived me into eloping abroad with him and shortly after that I found
out pregnant.”
Though outwardly impassive, I was suddenly hanging on her every word with morbid curiosity.
“We both stayed in a shabby rental we had called home. I even had to survive
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on terrible… terrible food I tell you. But in spite of the hardships, I still felt happy and proud,” she
was now looking somewhere far away behind me, “Knowing I had bravely escaped the shackles of
our family’s arrangements and taken con- trol of my own fate without having to let someone control
my life and my fu-
ture.
Did she just say ‘our family’? I took a second to scoff silently, but I still listened.
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The good times didn’tst however,” Be continued; her voice was growing
somber.
“It was only when I started running out of cash that I
discovered Isaac’s true nature. He got very abusive with me. He always gam- bled, and most
heartbreaking was that he even flocked around with prostitutes.”
What a story.
I was human too and what she was narrating to me was quite sad, that was if it was true. But I
mean, she’d chosen him anyway. Maybe I would have been ex- tremely pitful had she been forced
on Isaac or vice versa.
“Every time he came back to the rental, it was to demand money from me. Thest time he
appeared was even a week before my due date.” Her voice trem- bled, but she pressed on. “He
ignored all my pleas and took all my remaining. money that I’d intended on using for my childbirth.
Things got very physical on that particr day and I got pushed to the ground…”
She frowned like she was reliving the memory.
Pl started bleeding immediately after I’d copsed, powerless on the floor and needing urgent help
but he didn’t even bat an eye at me. He just walked away!” She gestured the ‘walked away‘ with a
flick of her hands in the air.
By the time the neighbors found me, I had already lost consciousness. And When I came to, I was
already lying on an operating table,pletely weak. But Fordeal wasn’t over; the doctors told me
the baby inside me had died, but I
needed to deliver the dead fetus urgently to save my own life.”
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A lump worked its way up my throat as Be described her excruciating ordeal of herbor which
got prolonged because the stillborn was unable to move up
the birth canal on its own.
“Like other mothers, I went through a painful and longbor, even longer be- cause a dead fetus
does not move through the birth canal on its own. I had just be a mother and then immediately
lost my child,” she whispered and I saw her hands clench tighter around her cup that I thought it
was going to break in her grip any second.
“I held my child and wept bitterly on the delivery bed.”
I was at a loss for words at that point.
What do I do?
What was I supposed to say to her?
Clearly not a heartfelt speech of pity because in as much as I got poked a bit by her story, arger
part of me wasn’t that sorry.
I leaned back in my seat, my cup of coffee already emptied.
“Good story,” I said with a wave of my hand. “but that doesn’t make us friends.
You see, a woman who intrudes in another’s marriage is a b**ch, and you, choos- ing to intrude in
my marriage, means you’re also a b**ch. Whatever you just told me, true or false, your suffering
was not caused by me. Instead, I have to deal with the aftermath of your recklessness, so I won’t
sympathize with you.”
Be’s face morphed into anger, her nostrils red as she clutched the coffee
cup tighter, veins protruded from the back of her hands.
“I don’t want your pity,” she sparked. “I’m only telling you because I’ve suffered so much. I must
marry Mark, so you better not meddle, or I’ll do something you’ll regret for the rest of your life. You
hear me?”
Augh escaped my l*ps and my shoulders wracked with amusement at the ab- surdity of her
words. I fl*pped my hair back from my shoulder, stillughing.
Be hissed, “What’s so funny?”
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I sighed, a chuckle stilling from my ch*st while I regarded her with both pity and bemusement.
How delusional this girl was, to think I would still go back to Mark after our divorce.
“You’re unbelievable, and that’s what’s so funny,” I said, shaking my head in dis-
I
belief.
“Mark and I are divorced,” I enunciated slowly and I made sure to emphasize each word so she
would read my l*ps. “For good!”
“Who cares if you marry Mark? Me?” I scoffed, rolling my eyes at the mere sug-
gestion.
“Yes, because I know how sly you can be,” Be retorted contemptuously.
“Oh, I’m sly, hey?” I arched my eyebrow.
Be met my eyes head–on as her l*ps curled into a sneer while she also rolled
her eyes at me and I, all the same, felt a perverse thrill in this verbal sparring.
“You think you know me, Be?” I tsked, shaking my head, “You have no idea
who I am, not really. You’ve been gone for so long, living in your own little world of misery and self–
pity, that you’ve lost touch with reality.”
Be’s jaw clenched, “Don’t pretend like you understand what I’ve been
through,” she spat.
“Oh, I think I understand perfectly,” I countered with sarcasm. “You im to have made a series of
poor choices, and now you’re trying to shift the me on
others. ssic Be, always the victim.”
“How dare you?” Be mmed her palm over the table.
“You have no idea what I’ve endured, the pain and suffering I’ve experienced.Y- ou’re not a mother.
You’ve never been one, you barren hag. Then you sit there in your ivory tower, judging me, while
you’ve never had to face true adversity.”
I barked out augh and said, “You’re such a confused fellow, Be. And what
did you say? Adversity? Is that what you call running off with some deadbeat and getting yourself
knocked up? Wake up, Be, that’s not adversity, that’s stu-
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pidity.”
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Be recoiled as if struck, and it looked like she might lunge across the table and p me.
“Well, let me tell you again, in case you forgot or since you’re still stuck in your world of delusions.
I’m not your real enemy here; your enemy is lurking in the dark,” I told Be.
The blow really hit her, I knew. She was boiling with the sting of her wounded
pride.
“Just wait, I will seed,” she spat at me.
“And I simply don’t give a damn f**k sweetheart,” I purred.
Be pushed back from the table, her chair scraping against the floor with a jar-
ring screech and without another word or look back, she turned and stalked out
of the café.
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