Tearing Paper

Beautiful

Part One recap

Nate is an aspiring journalist who is tasked to write an article about Namiri Island, a famous holiday island he has no idea about. However, he agrees to do his best. At the same time, he does this to completely start over with his life, after a traumatic break-up that causes his ex-girlfriend, Ella, to attempt a suicide. After thinking he has moved on from his past, Nate is shocked by the news that Ella is conscious, yet still head over heels for him because she lost her memory about their break-up.

Dianne is a girl from Namiri Island who leaves everything she has there, including her twin brother Devon, to be a famous poet in town. Little does she know that living the urban life isn't as easy as she dreams it will be. She gets harshly rejected from a big publishing press, but comes across Lucio, the rebellious, messed-up son of the owner. Dianne ends up staying with Lucio in a no-strings-attached relationship, although she does not know that Lucio has fallen in love with her after a while. Meanwhile, a devastated Devon decides to look for his sister in town.

When Nate and Dianne meet, they realize that they both have one thing in mind: going to Namiri Island. Of course, along their sweet escape, love gets in the way.

-

Part Two starts here

“Are you okay, Nate? You know tan doesn’t really look good on you.”

Nate’s lips felt numb as he forced another smile to the cheerful girl sitting in front of him. Her brown hair cascaded down her shoulders freely, and her face looked fresh as ever with that peachy touch she always added to her cheeks. He knew—he had been there ever since she started considering to grow her hair longer and get in touch with makeup. He watched her transform from a playful little girl to a lady—perhaps, the transformation was too much that it gulfed away everything he loved about her as a childhood friend.

How could his heart be so frozen towards such a beautiful figure?

He cleared his throat and massaged his temples.

His definition of beautiful had clearly changed towards a more delicate figure—quiet and filled with mystery, intriguing him to dig deeper and deeper through her walls to reveal every bit of what she had to hide. And before he knew it, he found out everything about her—and everything about her was…

Beautiful.

“Nate. Wake up,” Ella tapped his hand and giggled. “You’ve been daydreaming a lot lately. They say seasickness is worst than jet lag.”

“I’m fine, Ella,” Nate sighed as he sipped his Earl Grey. Earl Grey… the exact choice he had when he first saw Dianne.

To be accurate, it wasn’t the first time he saw her. He’d seen her everyday, but for no particular reason at that day, he decided to look closer, longer.

He never knew it would be this hard to keep her off his mind.

“You seemed so… stressful. Your article’s going great, isn’t it? Mom told me about it,” Ella grinned. Nate nodded, deciding to take this as a chance to help Ella regain her memory. “Yeah. You used to be so… bummed—about me, and my journalism career. Remember? We fought a lot about that.”

“Really? I’m so proud of you now. At least now I get to understand how much you love doing what you do… and we can—you know, start over with a clean sheet.”

“Excuse me?”

Ella kept on smiling as she talked, “Come on, Nate. I know you wanted to put our relationship on hold because of my condition and stuff, but—it’s been weeks and I feel completely fine. I don’t think I’m missing anything from my memory anymore. What do you say?”

Nate’s eyes fell on his hand as Ella touched it. It was the first time their skins met after they part ways—and the coldness that ran through his veins made him realize how empty he was. He just could not love her anymore. And he shouldn’t be a coward any longer about it.

“Ella—I’m really sorry,” he tried to avoid looking into Ella’s pleading eyes. “I know you feel great right now, but… trust me, just, trust me. Your memory is gonna come back sooner or later and—please, trust me—then, you will understand why I’m doing this…”

“You’re leaving me,” Ella’s voice faded into a whisper. “I love you, Nate. You were the first person I wanted to see when I opened my eyes in the hospital. I guess—“

“I don’t feel the same,” Nate concluded Ella’s sentence and stood up. “Sorry. Life is calling—we should be going our separate ways now.”

-

I decided to break the story down into parts because I realize it's easy to get confused with the multiple plots going on in the story. As you might have noticed, Part Two starts after Nate and Dianne went back to town. There's still a lot to happen and I hope you're all as excited as I am. Updates might be slow as I have continuously reminded everyone, but I'm glad to still receive some love every time a new update is posted so I'll keep writing this story as best as I can c:

Thanks everyone!