Chapter one-hundred-and-eight

"Actually, I changed my mind. Sorry for that, but after seeing your husband's plans for his company, I'd rather pop a bottle of champagne. Ha-ha."

She smiled and nodded, feeling a little frustrated. But she slid her son his cup of steaming tea and returned to the kitchen with the other one. She placed the cup down, leaning against the counter, and she realised how tired she was after such a long day. Her wrists were aching and her stomach was growling. Despite all the food she prepared for her family and new friends, she hadn't actually eaten much at all. But she couldn't rest yet.

After plucking some paper towels from the cupboard, she crouched down to dab at a puddle of golden-brown liquid. Her mind recalled what had happened just a few minutes before.

She'd poured the scalding tea into two fancy cups, and had opened the drawer to pull out a couple of saucers and small spoons.

Her mind was clouded by mixed emotions. It had been a long day, with unexpected company, when all she had desired was to spend just a few hours with her hardworking husband and sweet son. It was all she wanted. She was pleased, nonetheless, that her husband had invited his colleague and his family, but there was just something about them that made her pity their lives, invested in only work. She felt terrible for feeling such a way, but she couldn't push away those thoughts every minute of every day.

She loved her husband. She loved her son. She liked that they were all she had. When they made her feel special, she really did feel like the luckiest person in the world.

She liked that she could cherish the cheery memories of her husband when they were younger, more carefree; when they lived in the moment. She liked that she was the only one who was allowed to see that side of him; the one that put her upon a pedestal and showered her with wave upon wave of love and affection. And a genuine care for what they were. She just wished, even though she felt bad for it, that he could've kept some of that 'live-in-the-moment' outlook on life after everything did steer in the right way for their relationship.

She wanted the best for her son too. Sometimes she also wished that her and her husband could be on the same page with what that meant though. She knew that Harry wanted nothing more than a caring mother and father, so when his own father was buried deep in his ambitious endeavours, she put in all her effort to ensure that he received double of what he needed for just a hint of happiness.

For a moment, she saw the hurt behind those kids' eyes. Harry's. Jim's. Little Sally. She pitied them. And she felt terrible.

Her wrist was on fire. She instinctively covered it with her other hand, and she felt the searing heat in the palm of her left hand. She looked up and noticed that she'd knocked over a cup of tea. Picking it up with her good hand, she placed it in the sink, avoiding the puddle on the floor. After soaking a tea towel and wrapping it around her right arm, she boiled another kettle, for she had only boiled enough for two cups. Afterwards, she rushed into the living room to serve the tea.

As she soaked up the tea, she massaged her own wrist, a little uneasy now after the accident. More than a little frustrated because she didn't really need to boil another cup. But she couldn't let it go to waste.

She stood, brushing herself off, and sipped from the cup of tea she'd left on the counter.

She was both fortunate and unfortunate that night. She protected her son by choosing to give him the cup of tea that contained only remnants of that metal left behind the second time she boiled that kettle. But she took the fatal dose herself.

What the Anderson family didn't expect was for their plan to backfire. Both Scarlett and Harry were supposed to die. And to little Ally's dismay, her mission wasn't over, and Ben only became more and more cruel over time. His obsession with revenge grew even bigger than his own father's.

And Harry, eternally-mourning the death of his late mother, found the Reprisal, an organisation led by a young man who was never granted judicial justice after a caucasian police officer wrongly murdered both his siblings and injured him severely. For years, he could only think of revenge, and when his long and tiresome fight for justice never achieved success, he made it his duty to help others achieve their justices.

Ally had also joined impulsively. She was angry with her family, especially with Ben, and she intended to seek revenge upon her mistreatment. But she wasn't careful. She fell in-love with Harry, the boy who was meant to be dead, and then her family found out. Their trust in her dwindled to almost nothing. Until she made her membership at the Reprisal a part of their entire plan and the reason that Tasmin Kelly became the family's scapegoat.

And Tasmin. The happy girl who had never faced hardship, who had fallen for the joy written in Harry's face, and who had held onto the hope that he would be happy once again, if only he tried. She was left in the dark, unknowingly betrayed each time Harry spoke with minimal affection and empty promises. She was left to take the blame for a crime she never could and never would commit. And she hides nearby right now, hearing the story for the first time.

She faces a situation so foreign to her, and she wishes that Harry, the poor boy who had never had so much as a normal life, could just turn and see her just one time.

Once more.

And smile.