That One Ride

Chapter 38: Stop

"There is one pain, I often feel, which you will never know. It's caused by the absence of you."

- Ashleigh Brilliant

Teresa's POV

My feet felt like jelly when I opened Alex's heavy office door with the back of my hip. From the corner of my eyes, I saw Jacob standing close to the entrance near the indoor plant of the office, but I was engrossed in the light-hearted mood that I shouted. "CHOCO PIE!!!! I have bought coffee and chocolates and lunch and flowers."

Jacob's head snapped at me, eyes wide as if he had seen Anabelle.

I ignored it and turned the whole body inside. Two heads moved at the sound and my soul escaped. I found myself numb, all the content in my hands crashing on the floor beneath me... If the floor still stood under my foot. Because I was fucking lost.

I looked at Alex, whose fist clutched Adam's collar, his face expressing all kinds of horrors as if I was the last person he expected in his office. Feelings were mutual, though.

Alex loosened his grip with a jerk that Adam's feet wobbled for a balance. "Get out!"

Without further ado, the couple stood up, and I came face to face with Eliana. Was it so wrong of me to not call her mother? Because it felt like the most bitter thing on my tongue. The sharp pain I felt as I locked my eyes with her was like one more second and I would have a heart attack.

It was hard to breathe in the toxic air of their presence. I blinked a few times, clenching my jaw at their intense gaze of Adam. His back was facing Alex, but Jacob did not miss the look I received, as if Adam just undressed me in front of a thousand people with his eyes.

They took a step closer to me in unison.

I felt my body turn into a statue, fixing its root in the same place as the blood drained out of me when they took another step. Adam quickened his pace, leaving Eliana a foot away from him. I was too shocked to say anything.

I caught a slight smirk on Eliana's face as Adam approached me.

"You destroyed everything, whore." Adam said, his voice a few octaves down dripping the venom with every word.

Then what happened made me widen my eyes.

Alex stormed towards Adam and started showering punches after punches. At one point, I heard a little crack sound, unable to figure out if it came from Adam's jaw or Alex's knuckled.

Dread filled my system when blood sprawled on the floor. The pain in my chest was unbearable as if someone had pinned a billion needles in it. I was shaking. My heart thudded in my chest, blood pounding in my ears at an alarming rate.

Blood.

Adam kills the dad.

Dad fighting for me to spare time.

Run.

Run as dad shouted. My mind alarmed me. I wanted to storm away from the scene before me.

Had the life been more enthralling if dad would be alive? This dark red shade always made my eyes twitch in pain, making me hold my breath in my lungs at the hideosity of watery honey-brown eyes of dad. He was my everything. He was all I wanted, the saviour of mine from the day I was born. I used to ask him why I had no siblings, for which he used to reply in his deep voice that I was enough. And I wanted to tell him, shout at him, that he was enough for me too.

Over the years of misery, I concluded it was not the pain of watching him die in front of me. But, the look in his eyes, shrieking at me the last goodbye. A departure we never got closure of words with. It was that pain in his eyes mixed with years and years' worth of love bundled up in a sag of his short-lived life. For his daughter. Every time I witnessed a frat party fight or any fighting for that matter, I had that unending guilt in my heart telling me that these two snatched away the pleasure of me saying goodbye to my father.