Chapter 57

"I guess I should start on the day that I met your mother...." Dale says as she continues.

"You've met her? But...but how?!?" he assumes she's talking about his stepmother and he feels uneasy about it.

And she told him of that day that his mother approached her and insulted her.

"But you know what? My heart chose to believe in you! This.…(she pointed to her chest) refused to believe what your mother said. My heart chose to believe that the love you have for me was real."

"But somehow my mind is being realistic so I decided to take pills to avoid being pregnant since I didn't want another child like me to grow up into this cruel world." she smiled sadly as she said that.

"The days, weeks and months passed blissfully. And I thought maybe I just imagined our conversation. But then, a week before you broke up with me, she met me again and showed me pictures of you and the different women you dated and discarded. She told me that she was being cruel to be kind by telling me that our affair will end inevitably just like those affairs you had with other women."

Dale bit her lip to stop herself from crying.

"Again....my stupid heart still chose to believe in you. That maybe like you always told me that I was different."

She swallowed the lump in her throat.

"But I was wrong..." she smiled a bitter sweet smile.

"That day you told me that it was over between us, it was like a confirmation of everything that your mother warned me about. That I was no different from a whore that you pay to f*ck. I felt so dirty remembering all the times that we made love."

And Edward could see the anguish in Dale's eyes and it breaks his heart seeing it.

"I couldn't cry. I just felt so numb. I wanted to cry so badly but my tears refused to fall. My heart was breaking into a million pieces but I couldn't understand why my tears wouldn't fall. I didn't know it then that it would be the cause of my nightmares."

Edward is horrified at what Dale is telling him.

He couldn't believe that his stepmother would go to such lengths to make his life miserable.

"I acted like I didn't care and that our break up didn't affect me but the truth is I was like a zombie going through all the motions of living."

She rubbed her chest a bit.

Her heart is beating so fast.

"What's wrong, my love?" Edward asks concerned.

She continues rubbing her chest.

"This is nothing...." she takes a deep breath before continuing.

She held his hand with the tiny scar.

"That night you thought you dreamt of me being there in bed in our condo..."

"Yes...?"

"You weren't dreaming you know..."