Just a Pain Reliever (Pinili Series #1)

Chapter 24

Lips of Reality

"Tss. I dated Alex before. I'm his one and only woman, Alannah. I hope you know your boundaries," she said, as if she's warning me to never cross the line.

Umangat ang aking kilay at halos matawa na sa kanyang mga sinasabi. I did not know that the past could interfere with the present.

I looked at her, with my eyes flamed by tranquil turmoil. The ache tasted like a poisoned wine united by the sophistication of domestic cigarettes: dreary yet beautifully made to crush me. It was nothing like the despair of a guilty prisoner. It was more like an outro to a lonely song that had captured my heart. It was made to end, making my ears wish to hear it for the first time once more. It was like a fulfilled cup that desired to be filled again. My strength and confidence felt like a cloak snatched away from me. I was creeped out by melancholia. Yet, as I would always do, I hid in my façade, like a turtle in its thick shell.

My vision drifted towards her beauty. She was like the sky, mighty and high. My lips trembled. Something, like an arrow, wallowed in my body. This was more than what I felt towards Bryce. The ache was more than I had felt before. Unknowingly, like a helpless child, I looked at Dos, whose eyes were narrowed in pique, firmly set upon me. I breathed and gazed once more at the other woman.

"Understandable. I did not even ask," kalmado kong tugon. 

I will not fight. I will not.

Had she really thought that I would scream and beg for mercy, as if I were a beggar claimed by a nobleman? Had she thought that I would cry in vain because I was not the woman who had been with him for a long time? Had she thought that she had power over me?

There were thousand things I might have said, yet I restrained myself. Strangely, I looked at Dos. His eyes were burned by confusion, distress and worry. I heard Hershey's sigh.  

"Pardon?" 

I wondered, my sight quivering in displeasure.  

"Nais mo bang muli kong isatinig ang aking sinabi?" malumanay kong tanong. 

She was watching me closely. I did not hate her presence at all. I did not loathe how she had been with Dos for a long time. There was something inside me, something dreadful and lonely, that could not be expressed by words. I do not understand where my annoyance was coming from. I saw her eyes flinch for a moment. I held my breath.

"Need not. See, I did not date him at all. It was only my fiction." Hershey came forward. I seized my time to see her beauty.  

It was her fiction, yet it felt as though it was real. Something clutched in my stomach. I could feel the rush of the waves, as if an enormous storm was coming on me. Although it was nothing but her humor, my heart remained sorrowful. I was in sadness, in anguish. 

Tahimik akong tumango at muling pinagmasdan ang kanyang mga mata. Her emotions were still and could not be named.

"Hershey, your humor is not inclusive at all." Dos began to move his hand towards my fingers. I immediately backed away. 

Naramdaman ko ang pagkagulat ni Dos. Maging ako ay nagulat sa aking inasal. Napayuko ako at hindi na muling tinitigan pa si Dos.