Live-In Strangers

CHAPTER 5: End it

"P-Pau, Lea, you should go in now."

Pau and Lea looked at me sadly before running to their apartment.

I sighed and looked at Fatima. But before I could even completely see her, her hand already flew to my face, making a loud sound of the slap. My ears rung for a second from that.

"You bitch..." she cursed. "Where did you run off this time, huh?! You think you can live alone now that you're an adult? Is that it?! You think you're a big shot now, huh?" She kept pushing my shoulder as she yelled each words.

"That's not--," I received another slap from her before I could even finish a sentence.

"No? No?! Then I'm just making this up? Leaving the house in the middle of the night. What, you're selling yourself now somewhere? You are, aren't you?!"

"N-No--ah! Let me go, Fatima!" She grabbed my hair and dragged me into the apartment. "Please! Let go of me!"

"Where did you get the money to buy those brats their toys, then?! Where's your money? Give it here! Give it to me! If you're gonna whore yourself out, at least remember to give a share to your mother who raised and took care of you, you ungrateful brat!"

She pushed me to the ground, trying to take my bag from me.

"Stop it! I don't have money to give you!"

"You stop lying! Just give it to me!"

At one point of our struggling, she managed to take off my bag from me. She just opened it without anycare, and threw everything out. Out of desperation to stop her from rummaging my bag, I pushed her with more force making her fall to the ground.

"Just stop!"

Her glares sharpened. "You--!"

"Raised me? Took care of me, Fatima? Really? That's what you think of what you did?" Tears flooded my eyes.

I hate that every time this confrontation happens, I'm the only who feels awful and cry like an idiot.

She scoffed. "Why? Didn't I?"

"Yeah! Yeah, you didn't! You never took care of me! And raised me? More like you kept me as your final bait when you're running out of men to milk! That's what you did! So, how... how can you talk as if you've been nothing but a good mother to me? J-Just where do you get guts to speak like that? Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" I cried.

People gathered. They're gawking and probably already making their scripts and own version of what's happening, but I don't care. I just couldn't care for anything more aside from Fatima's scoffs right now.

"You're talking back now, huh? Maybe you really found someone rich to back you up! You did, didn't you?!"

I gaped at her in disbelief. "Is that really all you care about right now?"

"What else should I care about? So what if I wasn't a good mother? At least I didn't abort you when you were still inside me! Just be grateful for that!"

"You know what? You should have aborted me! Maybe by then, I could actually feel a gratitude towards you, to what you did for me! Because instead of living this pointless life while being abused and starved, I would rather never live at all! Especially if I would have someone like you as my mother!"

Her lips trembled and grabbed my MP3 player near her and threw it on my direction. "Then die! Kill yourself! No one's stopping you. Go, Aira! End your pathetic life that you hate so much! End it! End it!" She started pushing me like a mad woman she is until I could feel my back against the floor.

I bit my lip and shoved her off me. "I will never come back here ever again!"

"Then don't!"

"I really won't!"

"You will regret this! You'll be coming back here, begging me to take you back, but I will never! You hear me, Aira? You will suffer out there, realizing that you should have never left in the first place! You'll regret leaving me!"

With that, I grabbed my bag and things I could reach and ran away. I could still her yelling from the distance, but I didn't listen to her anymore.

I just can't anymore...

After all that drama, I found myself in a park somewhere far from our area.

There, I sat on a swing in daze for I don't know long. When I came to my senses, the sky was already colored in red and orange.

My face still feel painful from Fatima's hits. Her long nails might have scratched me along the process of our fight and I just can't pinpoint where exactly in my body was aching the most. I don't even know how I still found myself coming back to Luke's penthouse.

"Good evening, Miss Ai--Miss Aira? Are you okay?" the guard asked.

I weakly smiled. "Yeah. Thanks."

After that, I went straight to the elevator. I don't care whether he was convinced or not.

But what concerned was that I went inside the penthouse and found Luke sitting on a couch. He has a laptop on his lap and seems to be working on something.

He looked up and saw me looking awful.

Dried tears. Messed up hair. Bruised face. I bet this is the ugliest I've been my whole life and I felt even worse now that Luke's looking all neat and clean with his still wet hair and white long sleeves.

"Aira." He put his laptop down the coffee table and removed his eyeglasses.

"I... didn't know you wear glasses."

"Oh, this? Just when I'm working." He looked at me again.

When he stood up, I unconsciously took a step back.

Luke slides his hands in his pocket and walked closer. The closer he gets, the more I step back until my back hit the door behind me.

"I'm pretty sure I told you to have fun. I didn't know your definition of fun includes... violence." I flinched when his fingers softly brushed my swollen cheek.

"I just... I had a fight."

"You did? Jesus. I wouldn't know."

I stared at him because of his sardonic reply.

He chuckled. "It looks painful."

"Because it is."

"I received notifications of your spending. There was no bandaid or cooling pack. Not part of the plan?"

"Definitely not."

So, he was getting notified each time I use his card.

"You bought lots of toys, though. What happened? Your playmates didn't like the fact that only you have new ones?"

I swallowed and looked away from his eyes that seems to be seeing right through me, reading my very soul.

"...Yeah."

"Ah. Kids these days. Spoiled and jealous. Parents aren't parenting them right." He shakes his head and turned around. "Well, then, I think I have first-aid kit somewhere around here. Let's get you patched up. It'll be pity to have your beautiful face scarred."

I stared at his back getting further before deciding to follow.

That was it. He wouldn't ask any more.

I already assumed that he's someone who doesn't pry into other people's lives, but I didn't think I would be right.

I wasn't ready to open up and tell anyone how pathetic my life actually is, but for some reason... there was a bitter taste of disappoinment lingering in my tongue as I withheld that part of me because he wasn't interested enough to be curious, nor he actually cares to ask.