17 I Did Love You

Anthon stood up. This was just all absurd! His face turned red, flared up by a combusted mixture of anger and frustration. His child, though she had not yet confirmed, was raised by someone else. His child, who begged him innocently to be his father, was raised by another man! His child, who was made up of his flesh and blood, did not know him!

He should have been the one to hold him the very first moment he came into the world. He should have been the first one to hear him cry! He should have been able to share the excitement in caring for him while he was still inside the womb of the woman he longed to be with!

Yesterday, when he first saw him bursting in from the door, he could tell right away! His small built was exactly his perfect replica when he was yet a child. All the features of his face were perfect resemblances of his own. The shape of his eyes arched with thick and dark brows, were absolutely a copy of his. There was no need to ask her. No need to ask her if the child was indeed his. He could just tell it! If women have their natural instinct, men do have it also. Absolutely no need of DNA test!

Tears were stinging in his eyes as he felt his heart became inflamed in too much pain and sadness! He did not only miss the woman in his dream, he also missed his child's first milestones in his most important stage of growth and development!

He suddenly became envious of that man who giggled when his son first learned to say the word, "papa".

He suddenly became more furious when he thought about that man who held his son when he first learned to walk. That man who must have scolded his son when he first misbehaved!

Those tears that were just stinging in his eyes were now rolling freely in his face and drowned his almost bursting heart! He could not hold himself any longer that he broke into a painful sob! He stood there for who knows how long until he calmed himself.

When he looked back at Jia, she was already sipping her coffee with an absent mind. Her eyes were swelling.

He walked back to her and sighed. He sat quietly for few minutes. None of them dared to break the silence.

"Jia, how could you be so selfish? Did it ever occur to you that the absence of love that scared you then, could somehow be learned? For the sake of our child? "

Jia did not reply. She felt her heart sank deeper.

"Jia, I did... I did... " he seemed to be at loss for the right words for her to believe. He then pulled her hands and place each palm in his, their fingers entwined until their warmth fused. Her tenderness softened his heart and all of a sudden, he became afraid that his anger might draw her away farther once again.

"Jia, could you please look at me? Could you please look into my eyes? Couldn't you read anything? He spoke so slowly, emphasizing his every word. Hoping that she would grasp it all.

He was indeed at the point of begging as he tenderly raised their entwined hands and cupped them in his face. He felt her body trembling and her struggle to look at him.

"Heaven knows that I did love you, way back then when we were good friends. Do you still remember? "

He watched her closely as she turned pale in her struggle to fight back the tears.

"I did love you when you start avoiding me. I just did not pursue because it was not yet the right time. I needed to prove something for myself."

" I did love you when you disappeared... and even love you more in everything that Jay told me about yourself. You may argue with me in the fact that I did not even once went to see you. It's because I wanted to prove myself first that I am worthy for you the moment I would become succesful in my studies. And what made me confident that I will not lose you after that, was the fact that I very well knew that you loved me, too! "

Jia responded with her sobs. She hurriedly pulled away but he was quicker to draw her close again.

" And I loved you so much when I held you in my arms back then... You just did not know what I went through that time, and that was a battle within myself. If I should value more the wishes of my brother in his deathbed or should I fight for my own happiness. And Giselle, your bestfriend, whom you also thought to be my wife, was actually the gem in Alex's life. "