When she turned around she tried to compose herself as best as she could. Acting as if she didn't know who was talking to her. She was not particularly good with remembering people, but she sure as hell remembered everything about the person's life she'd ruined. When she saw him she was taken back. The man standing before her was nothing like the men she had met in Paris.
Emmanuel was wearing a white t-shirt that revealed every single tattoo he had on his arms. It seemed as if he had aged a couple of years on the eight months since she last saw him. He had a full beard now and his eyes were tired. But she also noticed something for the first time. He was handsome. Not in the way Nicolás was, but in a more dangerous way.
"May I help you?" She asked in the most innocent tone she could muster. She did look different from the woman he had met all those months ago. He hair was blonde, she was wearing reading glasses and she was paler. Be he could recognise her anywhere. He had spent eight whole moths looking for her.
"Don't play dumb with me. I know you are not stupid" He spat the words as if they were poison. Dalia knew he was mad, his eyes told her. "You think I could forget the face of the woman who tried to ruin me?" he asked with such disgust that it pained her.
"Look, the kids will be here any minute. Please leave" she said in the most polite way she could, but her voice broke at the end of the sentence. She knew her eyes were watering up, so she turned around to finish setting up the stereo, syncing her phone to it and looking for the music she needed. Her hands were trembling so much that she dropped her phone on the floor, but she didn't have it in her to pick it up.
She knew her new life was over. He had found her and he was not going to leave without her. Not after what she'd done to him. She didn't hear him leave, but once she turned around, he was gone. After a couple of minutes the kids started pouring in. She spent the whole class somewhere else, thinking about something else. At a certain point, one of the kids suggested that the finish class early, she figured it was because she was not giving her all, so she agreed, apologizing to them the whole time.
Dalia was glad that'd stopped using her bike. She needed time to herself. To think about the situation she was. She could run away, leave everything she had there and go somewhere else. She had the money to do it. But she didn't want to. She had built a life she was happy with. She was known as the English teacher, the new girl in town that everybody liked because of who she was as a person, not because they had to because she was royalty.
When she got home she was glad that Emmanuel wasn't waiting for her. The sky was clear and the sun was shining. She thought of what she used to do on a bad situation when she was in Aurum, so she changed into a bathing suit and left her house towards the beach, climbing down the wood stair from the cliff of her house towards the ocean.
That was the first time she was going to swim on the Pacific Ocean in her new home. When she touched the water her whole body jolted. The water was freezing cold. She got in slowly at first, but then she submerged herself completely, staying inside the water until she couldn't hold her breath anymore.
The polar tides calmed her for a while; washing away ever worry she had about being found. After what felt like an hour she emerged from the water, wrapping herself in the towel she had taken there and climbed up the stairs, feeling renewed. That was until he saw the man sitting on her back porch.
"Susanna is going to be here in a while. I don't want her to see you. She'll worry about me" Dalia said, not even looking at him, going straight for the door, but not locking it behind her. She knew he wouldn't leave again, not without a fight.
YOU ARE READING
72 Hours
Romans"That was so corny" That was Dalia's response. He took the bracelet and locked it in her wrist "And we've been engaged since I was 5" "Yes, I know. My parents felt the need to wait until I was in love and off age to tell me" he retorted. "See. I hav...
