hell or flying | Chaelisa

Chapter 29

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Her texts were distributed throughout the last couple of weeks I've been radio silent. How else could it be, anyway? I had nothing left to say. There was nothing more to tell. Not on her part and not on mine. Explain that's what she wanted. Explain what exactly? How she tricked me? How she lied to me for months along with her friends who clearly weren't mine? Did she perhaps want to drive one more knife through my heart, so I could fall down to my knees and collapse in the pool of my own blood as I'd bleed out?

No matter what it was, I couldn't do it. Even if my stupid, foolish heart ached every time, she would cross my mind or my head forced a memory for me in dreamland after I've forcefully banished them throughout the day. Despite everything that's happened, she was still all I could think about, and if not lucid, then when I was out cold, waking up in a sweat and gasping for air to fill my lungs because the woman my heart longed wasn't there. Which I kept telling myself was a good thing. Because it was. I didn't want to have her anywhere near me ever again. I couldn't.

Truthfully, my anger dissipated after about a week or two. I realized it wasn't her who took my parents from me. It wasn't her fault what happened. She didn't deliver the final blow to their hearts, ending their lives in an instant. It was him. And though she was his sister, she was a different person. Lisa was Lisa, the one she's always been, and he was... well... a murderer.

But even if I came to this conclusion, it changed nothing. Not really. The truth remained the same, still hidden and obscured from my eyes, but nevertheless what I did know was truthful and painful. She lied. Every time she woke up beside me, she made the conscious decision to lie. For whatever reason it was, it wouldn't be enough to justify. She deceived me and kept on choosing the same path over and over again, perhaps hoping I would never find out. Perhaps trying to keep it from me forever so I would just end up being the same lovesick college student I've been before.

It didn't matter if her plan was to shatter me before or after. The end result would always remain the same. And whether she planned all this, whether she knew and did all of this as an act of sick revenge to bestow upon me, I no longer cared. I was numb to it all, to all the feelings, to all the thoughts. With her things torn to pieces and burned in the bathtub of my home, my feelings were split in two, turning to ashes as well. Ashes that were blown away by the wind carried in the arms of my deceased parents, who looked over me from above, settling their ghostly hands upon my shoulders comfortingly.

I wished I could feel their touch, draw from their comfort, now more than ever. But I had no one. I didn't have friends. I didn't have a lover. I didn't have a family. No, Park Chaeyoung was completely and utterly alone, safe for the baby growing in her stomach. The baby I couldn't help but momentarily wish wouldn't be there, so I wouldn't have a reason to hold on, anymore. But I couldn't take my baby girl with me. No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't drag her to the depths of the underworld alongside me just because I was tired of living. No, she deserved better than that.

She was who I tried to think about when my thoughts circled back to the Thai woman with piercing brown eyes. And though it would help for a while, it was never enough to keep her out of my head and out of my heart. Perhaps that was the reason I couldn't bring myself to block her number. Perhaps that was why, despite deleting her number on my phone, I would read all her messages over and over again and stare at the screen blankly, partially numb, and partially feeling everything.

Feeling the heartbreak, feeling the constricting of my chest, the way my eyes would sting and my nostrils would flare. Despite trying not to, and banishing all emotions, I would still feel them so intensely, though it felt more like ambient noise, always present, but never loud enough.

However, in spite of my feelings for the beautiful woman, I couldn't allow myself to fall back into the rabbit hole she dug out for me. I couldn't see her again. Even if a part of me screamed at me to just go to her, to let her explain, and to trust her. But I knew better now. Now, I was aware there was no one I could trust, not even the woman I've entrusted my heart with and would follow to the ends of the earth. It was a mistake. She was.