Her Flaws

Chapter 23

“Hoy! Marlon! Leave it as it is. Who will load it tomorrow again? We're not going to use this truck for other reasons today.” a heavy voice came from somewhere behind.
“Oh oo.. I will put all this up again after lunch then.” said the man who's name seemed to be Marlon, who had put out almost ten small but heavy cartons. I almost judged right that it was lunch break. The whole place was quiet, suddenly in a minute. I took a good look all around and sneaked out of the container without making a noise. You know how difficult it is to keep peace when there's a voice inside you, shouting, “Hurry!”
It was a very awful place with no cleaning. No sweepers, no brooming and mopping at all. I made my way towards the wide open gate of that nasty warehouse, so I could get out.
“Excuse me miss?” a voice came from behind and dreaded me.
“Oh, yes?” I asked with decency.
“How come you get inside?”
“I was looking for someone to tell me an address but couldn't find anyone. The gate was wide open, I didn't know it was a warehouse.” I excused and tried to walk away.
“But I didn't see you going in?”
“Then you should do your work more properly sir!” I advised the poor old watchman who may be, was doing his best and I made a fool of him. He didn't try to stop me because he knew it would trouble him. He didn't find me stealing anything so he let me go without any more questions. That moment, I was glad that I could lie nicely. I had never lied better than this ever in my whole life till then.
I walked five minutes away from the warehouse and sat on a bus stop. I had the same lost feeling that I had on the bus stop in Valenzuela. I didn't want to go to the guest house. I didn't want to trouble Sheridan so I turned my phone off, and removed the microchip from it. I chopped off the chip and threw it in the dustbin near. For a moment, the fact that I was not going to meet anyone from the guest house (as I had decided), made me sad. Melancholy state of my mind was making me burst into tears and mourn the death of my fortune. I was so doomed. Even I thought like there might be no one in the world so unfortunate as me. I didn't have so much money in my pockets. A bus came and stopped. A person who was sitting beside me stepped into it and the bus passed.
“Why didn't you go? Next bus will be here after two hours.” said a schoolgirl who was sitting beside me in her school uniform and with her school bag, almost ten or eleven years old, not more than this at least.
“I haven't decided a place to go to, yet.” I replied with a slight smile. It was so hard to smile at a moment like that, “Didn't you have to go?” I asked after a while.
“No. I don't want to go home.” she said with a sad face looking down.
“And why is that so?” I asked, I was astonished on such words of a little girl (but didn't act like I was trying to scold her or something otherwise she wouldn't have told me her story).
“Will you send me back home?” she asked raising her head and looking into my eyes.
“Emm.. let me see what kind of situation it is. If it's worth leaving home, I can take you with me.” I said in an energetic voice holding her hands.
“I don't want to go with you. I want to go on my own.” she said very proudly.
“I like the attitude. Well.” I smiled.
“I don't have parents.” she said in a very sad tone. I had never consoled an orphan little kid, so I didn't know what to say. I sat quiet, looking down at my shoes and listened to her. And eventually looked at her.
“Papa died in a road accident when I wasn't even born,” she continued after a sigh, “and ina died last year of cancer.” as she said this in a hiccup, I could see tears in her eyes now. I offered her my arms and she hugged me crying.
After a few minutes, she gathered her strength and continued, “ina left me in an orphanage before she died. She told me to wait for her, but she never came back.” another tear dropped out of her small eyes, “I spent a month in that orphanage waiting for ina but then someone came to see me. They were my tita and tito. When my parents were alive, they didn't have good relations with them. I wasn't pleased to see them. They adopted me. But they are very bad kapatid na babae!”
“What do they do to you? Do they treat you like a slave?” I asked with serious expressions.
“Tita makes me wash dishes and clean the house. And when she's not around, tito touches me and I don't like that. I feel bad about it.” she told me.
“Seriously? Didn't you tell anyone?” I asked
“I told tita that tito touches me here and there when I'm cleaning the table or changing the flowers in the vase, she slapped me and told me to shut up. She often beats me up so much.” saying this, she showed me her burnt arm and swelling on leg. It made me forget my own problems. I realised that when I thought that I was the most unfortunate one, how wrong I was. I couldn't take her to the police then or I could end up being behind the bars myself. But I couldn't leave this girl to run into hands of other kidnappers, and sending her back home was all the same. An hour passed by, no bus came.
“Where are you planning to go?” I asked.
“I haven't decided a place to go to, yet.” she said with a slight smile.