21

EMILY'S POV

Ouch.

I couldn't deny the stinging sensation in my chest, as I watched them. In my head, the girl changed to me, and it was me and John again, brimming with love for each other as we kissed. I wanted to tear my eyes off them, I really wanted to, but I couldn't. My eyes were stuck staring at them. I didn't want them to see me staring, but…

Damn. Even though all the feelings left in me for John was hatred, I still couldn't help feeling hurt.

Maybe I connected with the part of me that had been in love with John. Staring at him kissing the girl madly, made me wonder if I was just another girl. It made me wonder if I was just a stand-in. A default person to always go to whenever he needed someone.

Those lips he had kissed me with… he was kissing someone else with them… Everything about it seemed wrong.

If I thought about it all, it was too painful. If his love had been fake, if our moments had been fake… if… if my idea of his feelings towards me had been fake…

I blinked hard, and just then, John noticed me, and stopped.

He dropped the girl, and she looked at me—breathing hard— like I was a necessary evil in the form of disturbance.

I got up immediately, and began to pack up all the papers, and folders.

"I'll leave, so…" I was saying…

"No, we'll leave." He said, and took the girl's hand. They both left, giggling about something, and I was stuck there, swallowing continuously, and trying hard not to cry.

The maids had seen them. They knew by now that I wasn't fine… that something was terribly wrong.

No. Don't cry. John is nothing.

I took in deep breaths, but it seemed like I'd never get enough of them. I didn't like John, so why was I hurting? Why was I seeing memories of us? I snapped my eyes shut, trying to hold back the tears.

Maybe it was just being treated as something insignificant… it was like he never cared. Everything… all my love, all my feelings, all my efforts, all my obsessions about him, he had laughed at them all.

Stop! I said in my head, and sat down.

With trembling hands, I began to pick the papers, arranging them. Blinking every second, I continued, trying to push myself into the work.

Forget it… forget John. He's a jerk. He's crazy. Tomorrow will be better. A better dawn… a better…. No, the… the darkest time of night is when Dawn is about to break. I'll find someone else. Three years will come and go in the blink of an eye.

I took more deep breaths, as I tried to encourage myself. Had my heart ever been broken? No. John was the first. I thought it had been fixed… maybe it hadn't been. Maybe I had simply patched it together, and neglected it, pretending it was whole again.

I continued to think as I arranged the papers into their respective folders, and slowly, as the minutes rolled by, my nerves calmed, and my hurt numbed into sadness.

Almost an hour later, John returned, and sat on the chair adjacent to mine. I looked at him.

His hair was tussled, and rough, and there was lipstick on his shirt. Imagining what they had done killed me. It wasn't even up to a week since we had broken up, yet he was already sleeping with a different girl.

"So, you're not done, yet? That's too slow, Emily." He said, brushing through the ones I had done.

"What's this?" He asked, lifting a bunch of papers up, and bringing out the stained one. "What's this?" He asked again, and his gaze went to the half-eaten burger next to me. "I'm your boss. You can't speak?" He asked, throwing the folder at me.

The papers flew in the air all around me, and fell.

I got up, bent, and picked them up carefully.

He watched me in anger, and when I turned to him, I looked at him straight in the eye.

"When you asked me out in high school… Were you forced?" I asked, unable to keep it in, and he tilted his head, trying to read my feelings, but I had tucked them deep behind an expression of stone.

"What? You're feeling mad? Sad?" He asked.

"Why did you approach me? Was it some bet? Why did you stay? All the things you said, were they lies? Are you a liar? You knew this was how you felt for me, but you kept me going, and believing in a love that didn't exist… a love that I alone felt. Why didn't you leave me when we got into college? Why didn't you leave a year after that? Why did you propose to me?" All the questions just came pouring out, and I surprised myself by not crying.

I simply needed answers. I wanted to stop guessing what he could have felt, so maybe it was better to hear it directly from him.

"Are you getting emotional, Emily?" He asked, with an amused smile, and I watched him coldly, with the only flame in my expression being my eyes.

Inside I bled…

Inside I cried…

All those wasted years.

"Did you run out of love for me? Or maybe I'm an omega who didn't worth you, so you simply played me? All I did… were they never enough?"

"You're supposed to be saying this with tears. Where are the tears?"

"You're not worth my tears, John. I want answers. I need your answers. Did you know from the start that we'd turn out like this? Or did it happen midway? Why did you let me keep going on?" I asked.

I was doing a good job… keeping my tears… just a little more, and I'd pour them all out.

"Or are you just getting back at me for breaking our engagement? Why are you doing all this? Is it fun for you? It must be because you're still doing it. I see a different person right now. The you I knew, and the you I see now… I just can't piece them together. Which one is the real you? Or are both fake? I want your answer!"

No, no, I didn't want to burst out in anger.

Because after the heat, and rage would come the flood… the flood of tears, so I wanted to play it cool.

"All those times, those days… The times we spent together, the things we did… What… what did I mean to you, John?" I asked with my voice, breaking at the beginning of my last sentence, and John paused.

He looked like he was trying to think, and after staring at me for a while, he replied, with a smile, like he had been waiting to say the words he was about to say for so long.

"Hmmmm… Nothing."

Nothing, The word echoed in my head.