Under the Umbrella ✓

-28-

Elliot quietly held her until she cried a year’s worth of rain but Aria couldn’t seem to let go of him even as she had slightly calmed down. It could have been the repetitive strokes against her hair or it could have just been his lulling presence but whatever it was, it put her at ease.

Maybe it was because she had tipped all her feelings out through her tears that her mind had started to restock itself with thoughts again and the only thing she could think of was of Hailey’s words from earlier. No matter how much she tried to justify Hailey’s actions and defend herself, she couldn’t. The fact that Aria wasn’t even angry only made her sad.

Hailey had always had a knack for spewing the harshest things in the heat of the moment and Aria wasn’t the only victim of her verbal punches. There were times Aria saw the recognition of Hailey’s insensitive words hit her sister in the middle of a dispute and Aria would know at once that Hailey had realized her mistakes. Hailey had her own ways to say sorry without really saying the words but her apologetic actions were as far as she could go with her character. So even if Aria was outraged with her in the moment, she never held grudges against her for very long.

But now it felt different. Maybe her words hadn’t hurt her before because somewhere in between their arguments, Aria knew Hailey didn’t mean it whenever she accused her of having a simpler life than any of her sisters did.

It was different now because all of her charges felt unfamiliar. Hailey hadn’t just sounded furious but she sounded like she was hurt from losing something very precious because of Aria.

It hadn’t occurred to Aria that she might have been a bad person. She could acknowledge the fact that she had had bad thoughts. She had wished she was born to an uncomplicated family, she had wanted to abandon her family to live for herself and she had even considered taking the easiest route out so that she’d never have to deal with life again. She didn’t know what exactly stopped her or was still stopping her from executing her thoughts out, but since she had tried to hold back on the whys or ifs and had tried to accept her reality made her think that she wasn’t all that bad.

Maybe this whole time she had been misreading the situation just to feel blameless. She couldn’t deny that she did stall away from coming home for as much as she could because it suffocated her. She couldn’t deny she thought it was okay to be a little selfish. She couldn’t deny that she was never there when something serious was going at home. She only ever turned up when everything was over and only just minutes ago, Aria was reminded of the disappointment she felt from no one showing up on time to comfort her but she had been doing the same for her sisters. She wasn’t just an evil person. She was a hypocrite.

Maybe their father actually had left because Aria hadn’t stopped him for the sake of being understanding. Maybe she hadn’t done anything more than just making the money for her sisters. Maybe she really had been the obstacle behind their joy.

“Do you want to sit down?” she heard Elliot say above her and like a bat out of hell, she sprang away from him, finally conscious of the moment.

She very nearly reached out to wipe off her tears on his chest in embarrassment but soon realized that it was much weirder than the position they were in. What had she been doing? She had completely let down her defense in front of someone she barely even knew. She panicked from the comfort she felt in his arms earlier.

The air between them was thick and stiff that it made it hard for her to breathe. The comfortable silence that followed them around earlier had taken a turn to become a big fat lie. She was anything but comfortable, and if she could, she’d shred herself out of her skin just so she didn’t have to be in the presence of his watchful eyes waiting for something to jump out of her.

“I’m sorry about all this,” she muttered painfully.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m just glad you look better.”

Like a switched that was flipped, Aria metamorphosed from mortification to infuriation. It maddened her that he was trying to look out for her and that she had welcomed the consolation. She wouldn’t have yielded to her outburst if he hadn’t triggered her with those words. “Why does it matter to you?”

“I would have been worried.”

“You hardly know me!”

He gazed at her in coerced silence, his eyes seemingly in conflict with his mouth. “It sounds stupid to me too but I don’t have a reason. I just would have,” he uttered after a moment of white noise.

She knew he was lying but the further she stayed, the more she wanted to continue staying there despite the suspicions that loitered around him. It must have not meant much to him to gush out things like that with such carelessness but she felt the world underneath her feet move in a speed she couldn’t match. Only her mind raced as fast. She felt like she might expect something more, something as silly as a promise and she couldn’t understand why she would expect it and to even expect it from him, a stranger.

She was losing her already wild mind. She had to leave.

Aria sidestepped him to get to the table. “I have to go.”

“What’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer him. There was no need to. She needed to keep her priorities in check. She noticed the umbrella lying on the table and she couldn’t help giving it a second’s look before she entirely disregarded it and grabbed her bag, ready to bolt.

She was just a few strides away from the door when Elliot spoke again. “What are you so scared of that you’re running away before anything could even begin?”

It was what she specialized in – running away before fessing up to anything – but what she was doing now wasn’t running away. When had running away from danger ever considered running away? She was scared of herself, scared of her wants and wishes. Amidst all other misty things, there was one thing clear to her failing eyes. She simply wasn’t worthy enough to chase after anything as magical as happiness.

She didn’t think she had the strength but she knew what she had to do and that was to make up for all the wrongs in her sisters’ lives. The wrongs in her own life was better left untouched. The trump cards her selfishness had kept in stack to escape the true face of her life occasionally was of old news. It was time she built her sisters a way out of the dark tunnel even if it meant she’d be prisoned in the very tunnel for the rest of her life.

She wrenched the door to his apartment open, ignoring him again, pretending to believe as usual that nothing would matter if she didn’t acknowledge it. She heard him call her name as she tore out his door but it didn’t stop her. She wasn’t ever going to stop for herself again.