Forbidden Love

~ 41

 When I woke up the next morning and came down to make breakfast, Austin were already in the kitchen, moving around as he cooked something on the stove. Weird. He was never there to have breakfirst, let alone cook them in the morning- he was always too busy for work to do that. I was sure I checked the date through my phone when I woke up, and it was not his off days. Despite the strange feeling that started lingering in my body, I decided to ignore it and walked towards the kitchen island and sat down. "Good morning," I greeted, pouring myself a cup of coffee from the counter.

He didn't answer right away but instead, he just gave me a forced smile and a nod before he turned back around and flipped the pan.

It was a decent effort, enough to fool my casual observation, but for my onlooker with a keen eye he was a walking advert for tension. His eyes moved with the alertness that came from heavy stress and his hands remained clenched by subconscious demand on the pan he was holding. Something was not right. He was too quiet and it was not like him. I can feel the fear in my chest waiting to take over. Perhaps it only wanted to protect me but there really wasn't any danger. It sat there like an angry ball propelling me towards an anxiety I just didn't need. The air was so brittle it could snap, and if it didn't, I might have. No-one spoke, what was there to say? Platitudes wouldn't cut it right now.

In the end, I let out a sigh and pushed the cup away. If he didn't want to have anything to do with me, then I'd give just that. But before I could get up and walked out of the awkward silence, he spoke with a tone that sent chills down my spine. I stopped on my tracks and turned around where he was standing with his back on me.

"Had fun yesterday?"

I clenched my fists as I hesitantly took a few steps back. I noticed my feet tremble but I couldn't show it to him, no. I couldn't show it that he can control me. "Um, yeah. Rhea had fun at school, with.. her friends. Wh-why do you ask?"

"Why, can't I?" 

"Wh-what, no, I didn't say that. I was-"

"Why are you stuttering, Camila? Is there something that you're afraid of?" When he turned at last to face me there was no trace of tears, not in his eyes or in track marks on his reddening face. His eyes were narrowed, rigid, cold, hard. In that moment I knew he was already far away. "Is there something that you want to tell me?"

It was then that I realized something. Did he know Austin was there with Rhea and I? It was not possible. He said he couldn't come and he didn't, right? "N-no. Austin, what are you doing?"

He walked closer to me now and stood before me, our faces were only inched apart from each other. I could feel his ragged breath blowing on my face. What started as a contortion of my stomach became a feeling of being smothered by his hard grip on my hand. My breathing became erratic, deep, then shallow. I fought it. I fought the feeling as my body writhed to be free from his grip. "You know I hate liars. What are you trying to hide?"

"I'm not hiding anything, Aus- let me go!"

"Then why didn't you tell me that he came back?" His holler reverberated in my ears like a clap of thunder, such was his rage. It was a roar of pure anger and it made my stomach churned. "I don't appreciate you hiding something like this to me behind my back," I'd seen him do this to others before, but I'd thought our bond immune. Now my blood drained and my heart hammered erratically. "I don't appreciate you going out with him without telling me. I got you here. You and Rhea," His eyes were a knife in my ribs, the sharp point digging deeper. Where there had been love was an emptiness, but not in any vulnerable sense. Uncomfortable with the void, he had filled it with an emotion he was more at ease with - raw anger. The unmoving gaze was accompanied by deliberate slow breathing, like he was fighting something back and loosing. "And I'm not going to let you two slip off of my hands. Not again, Camila."

And then he let go off my hands, which hurt like hell with his grip still lingering. He went upstairs but I fell down on the floor, froze in spot and felt all the hope, dreams and feeling from within me drained, replacing them with a feeling of despair, hopelessness and most of all, fear. It clawed cut through my body and wrapped around my brain. It choked the breath from my lungs and left my body dry heaving, desperately trying to rid me of all this. Black mist swirled at the edges of my mind, drawing me into it's open arms and salty tears spilled over onto my cheeks leaving a tight, dry feeling. His cold eyes, his angry tone and the way he made me remember how he helped me from the very first start, made me remember that I owed him and because of that he wanted me to return his favor- which he didn't tell but I knew too well. He knew Alex was back and worse, he knew that we've met. I didn't doubt the feeling was there to stay, reminding me of its existence every time I opened my mouth to breathe. 

Then my anxiety alarmed me by the sound of footsteps but I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Rhea walked down from the stairs with her pyjamas on and Poppy in her grip. "Mommy, what are you doing down there?" She asked with confusion, then her eyes glistened in excitement. "Oh, are you searching for Poppy's eyes that he lost?!" She held the teddy bear up in the air, showing the missing eyes on its right eye socket.

I took a deep breath and wiped my tears away. "Um, yeah, I was searching for them. I-I thought I saw it down there."

"Did you find it?"

"No," I brushed her hair with my hands and tied it into a ponytail. I smiled when Rhea pouted her plum lips at me not finding Poppy's right eye. "We'll search it together next time, okay? I promise. Come on, you have to get ready for school."

"Okay," She muttered sadly and I walked with her upstairs. My fist clenched into a ball as I walked past our bedroom, the door was closed and I was scared that he was going to burst out of the door and hurt me anytime he wanted. I looked at my hands. The red lines where he had pressed his grip was visible around my wrist. I pulled my sleeve down and walked inside of Rhea's bedroom before I locked the door.