The Runaway Professor

27. About Trust and Truth

A/N: after this chapter, the worst will be over (for the FMC Delia). Meaning: the story will be coming to an end shortly. Enjoy and thanks for sticking around<3

Stay healthy and kind:)
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TW: weapon use, blood, cuts, violence, "accidents" (vintage baby induced)

My lashes grazed my cheeks for nothing more than half a second. Breath caught in my lungs I stared ahead, the clove-like perfume of Paige Darkwood in my nose. I stared into her cold blue eyes.

"You were my friend. I put my trust in you!" My face twisted into disbelief.

"Trust?" A scoff rang around us. The room suddenly carrying depths to swallow echoes. "Silly, you can trust no one." Upon tilting her head, the traitorous feline appearance of a blonde darling slipping. "You, my dearie, should have learned to not put trust in anyone after your own family dropped you. Did they not prove to you over and over and over again that such a futile thing as trust does not exist when it's voiced?"

Eyes burning, throat pulling painfully I sniffed. "How could you?" My chest physically ached at the betrayal of one I had called my family. A woman I had considered trustworthy, after she hold my hand through difficult times.

"Your past was meant to teach you to not carry your heart on your sleeve." Her gaze blackened. Shadows of a strange origin blanketed her whole. Paige, at least the one I once thought to have known, turned into an unrecognizable monster. A creature feasting on nightmares, trauma and tears. "Yet, here you are."

My brows twisted in pain at the manner of a silent tear running down the woman's cheek. Even now, after figuring the truth, I was moved by this.
How could I care for her, even now?

"Scarred by your mother and father, you still glow. Over the past years, it was all I wished for—all I tried to achieve. The smile I so rarely managed to lure from your stiff muscles, now paints your lips like a button pressed. Not my doing. It is not me!"

Both hands disappeared in her hair, the pair of scissors still in one of them after all. She had a god damn weapon in her grasp and I was not moving a single muscle. I should be thankful my heart worked on its own. My body tensed on the spot.

"No!" She growled, a shudder rippling through me. The sharpness of her tone forced me to flinch. She knew this. She was the one to soothe the ache left in my chest by the fight's impact with my step-father. She knew. "Effort after effort..." she shook her head in disapproval. "My help was not enough for you. I gave you everything. My all." Hands hold out to me, open palms, mirroring innocence. An act of kindness. "Every part of me."

"Every part but the truth," I reminded her.

With pure and utter ice in her eyes, Paige stared at me like a mad-woman. I gulped, the tightness in my throat making it impossible to swallow any saliva. Idiot. Delia, you idiot!

"...I did everything for you—not expecting much in return. Nothing but you. All I want is you." A long exhale welled over her lips. "All I wanted—ever wanted was you."

"Expectations are a you-problem, Paige." My eyes flickered from her freezing gaze to the trembling hand keeping a steady grip on the scissors. "An act of sincere intentions, means you do it because your heart desires it. Not because you expect something in return."

"Shut your mouth!" She hissed, weapon pointing at me. My non-existing balls just slipped into my stomach. Why can't I just fucking keep all this to myself? She approached. I took a step back. A small one, which the predator registered and in return took a larger one in my direction. "How dare you lecture me?" A scoff later, she had smacked me across the face so harshly, my head hit the wall and stars danced across my vision. Sharp nails dug into my chin forcing me to look up. The differences in our heights weren't crucial, but the act itself—tilting my head to make me face her—displayed the power she currently hold over me. "All my efforts and still you think that professor of yours is what you deserve? Baby," she whispered and huffed to mock me. "You deserve someone as fucked up as you are yourself." A fresh set of tears formed in my eyes.