18.

Andrè gets into his car and drives away from the Rose Garden with a hard set face. One that seems to have been set in stone. He looks pissed off and sad all at the same time.

Pissed off because he was told off by his own best friend on behalf of his ex wife. And sad because he was actually unable to move when the fire happened. He thought he had overcome that trauma.

To think of it, he is getting remarried to the lady he has loved for a pretty long time so why does he still feel sad when he was the one who threw her away? When he was the one who openly declared that he loved Anna?

Ugh.

Anna.

He arrives home and goes into the big house. He stands at the door and looks around. Everywhere is littered with even the biggest kind of dirt there is. Chocolate wraps, the chocolate itself, melted and sticky on the tiled floor, sweets and cookies all around even crumbs of bread all littered the entire living room.

Akeelah would never, never make the house become this dirty no matter how sick she got. Everyday when he comes home, except when he comes in after keeping late nights, he meets her running the vacuum cleaner and mopping off the floor on multiple occasions.

Anna is quite the opposite. She eats so much that she is too tired to clean up after herself. When Akeelah was there, they only had a butler who was in charge of the jobs Akeelah didn't do which wasn't a lot. But now, they have one more butler, three cooks for different cuisines, a makeup artist, a personal maid for Anna, a hair and cloth stylist and so much more. But she didn't remember to get one who cleans the home.

Andrè sighs and goes into the house, closing the door behind him. He just heads straight for the room but meets Anna in the living room, binging on Netflix and munching away on whatever it is she is eating at the moment.

She sights him and pushes the pause button on the remote control lying in front of her. She stands up and heads to him.

Andrè thinks she is coming to him to do what a girlfriend should do but he is quite wrong. He has no idea what he walked into.

"Where are you coming from by this time in the morning?"

Andrè is obviously really taken aback by her question. He can feel his face sagging, tired and in need of rest but she can't even let him have a seat in his house before interrogating him? He has quite the eyes for women.

"What?"

"You heard me." She retorted with her hands flicking her hair off her face. Andrè follows the hand movement and wondered why he was so enamored back then by that singular movement. Nothing about her seems appealing anymore.

"Well, since you won't give me the time to rest if I don't answer you, I'm coming from a party."

"Oh. A party with women isn't it? Seeing that your tie is crooked. You must have had a good time." She answers and jumps into conclusion to much more surprise for Andrè.

Right about that time, Andrè finally burst from all the stress and overthinking of the night before.

"So you think you don't deserve for me to see other women? You're not that awesome."

Anna takes a step back unconsciously, surprised as the outburst coming from someone who always spoke gently with her.

"It's that whore isn't it? You have been weird ever since that day in the boutique." Anna speculates, now angry too

"Did it cross your mind that you're the one who changed ever since that day? You doubt my every move and blame an innocent woman for absolutely nothing-..."

Anna interrupts him with a hand in the air.

"Innocent woman you say? When did she become so innocent and how did you know?"

"Ugh..." Andrè grunts and leaves her standing there, leaving her question unanswered.

He stomps to their room and locks the door on the inside. Indirectly telling her that she has no place in his bed for the main time even though, as a man, he has no idea what the meaning of his actions is.

They only make Anna get more resentful and she directs most of her hate to Akeelah.

Innocent Akeelah.