Matilda Garcia is married to one of the most established lawyers and land owners in Trinidad, and she cannot be more happier. Until, an object from her past suddenly appears in her life which leads to solve the mystery of her dead daughter, and circ...
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A burden lifted off my shoulders as the ring vanished beneath the waves. It was a small burden, but a burden nevertheless. Ariel had her strong arms around me again, and my body melted into her warm grasp. The sun was pelting her back, almost assaulting her with its hot rays. She cringed in annoyance, but opted to not voice her complaints. She turned her face to me, her eyes filled with friendly concern.
"You okay?" She asked gently, as she rested a hand on my shoulder in comfort. I bit my bottom lip in nervousness, and swallowed my saliva. I looked down for a moment, thinking about how I would answer her.
Finally I said, "Yeah, I'm fine."
"Let go home," She added. She let her hand drop from my shoulder to her side. In one quick movement, she started to lead me back to the shed where Everard stood. However, a familiar thought invaded my mind. Why? Why did you defend me? How did you find the courage to talk to Henry like that? I knew Henry was questioning this as well. The audacity she had to speak to him like how she did would be enough to drive him mad. I remembered her argument with Everard earlier, especially the part where she said that she didn't care that Henry fired her. For some reason, I think she was lying about that.
I stopped walking suddenly. Ariel noticed this and paused to give me a puzzled look.
"Till..."
I cut her off with, "Ariel, tell me how you truly feel." Her puzzled look only strengthened.
"What do you mean?" She inquired.
"Tell me how you really feel about losing your job? And don't tell me that you don't care, because you do," I snapped. I grabbed both of her hands. "Your feelings matter to me, so stop hiding them from me. You have always comforted when I went through rough times, so let me do the same for you."
The dark skinned woman sighed deeply. She averted her eyes to the sea, avoiding my gaze. A ghost of uneasiness appeared on what I could see of her face. She sighed again, turned her gaze back to me.
"Matilda, I haven't been a hundred percent honest wid you," she stated with a melancholy tone to her voice. "The truth is dat loosing my job a kill me inside. De anxiety is eating at my soul, but that's not de only thing that I must yuh. Tilly, I... Henry didn't fire me." She paused for ten seconds, and with each of those passing seconds, my heart swelled with anticipation.
But such anticipation quickly died down when I finally put two and two together. It all made sense. The way she acted that night was like a woman who wasn't happy with her job, and wanted a way out. The physical altercation between Henry and myself was the perfect excuse. Why didn't I see this? It was so obvious.
"You resigned didn't you?" I asked, but it was more of a statement, a matter of fact. The woman before me nodded, not even trying to refute my claim. "Why?" I questioned.
"It was an act of rebellion. You are my friend, and I won't watch someone hurt you, and do nothing 'bout it. I swore that I 'ould kill him if he hurt you again, and he did. I want to kill dat son of a bitch." She rose from the seat in such anger that I thought that she was going to march back to the Garcia Mansion and beat Henry to a pulp. I rose as well and stood in front of her to stop her. She groaned and swallowed back her rage, sitting back down on the seat. I sat down too.
