AGAPI

27. Confession

"I'm gay, Iris."

"What?" I voice out almost inaudibly looking at Caroline, not sure if I heard her right but soon look down at the floor realising that I was rude.

"Wow!" Iris sits up on the couch. Her attention is towards Caroline while I'm looking at how cute she is being right now while hurting the fuck out of me.

"Yeah, I'm gay." Caroline confirms that we heard her right.

"Do you have anyone you like?" She asks Caroline.

"No."

"Do you want me to set you up on a date?" I really hope she isn't making Caroline uncomfortable.

"Iris, I've spent enough of my life dating so, I don't wanna date anymore. Now, please go to your room." Caroline pleads.

"Are you heartbroken? Do you want a hug?" She opens her arms wide for a hug with a sad face.

"Okay," Caroline hugs her for a second and soon breaks the hug. "Done? Thank you for the hug. Now," she points at the direction of our room, "You're gonna go, right?"

"Nah." She smiles like a spoilt child and sleeps back on the couch. We both huff at how stubborn she is being.

"Fine. You leave me with no choice, Iris." Caroline takes her phone out.

"Caroline!" I scream, startling her, Iris and most importantly myself. I didn't expect I would shout so loud. "I'm sorry." I apologise and point at her phone as I continue, "No, please." I hold my hands together begging her not to call my grandma.

"Iris," I look back at her. "Do you want your company to go bankrupt? You know what my grandma could do to your company, right?" I try to knock some sense into her brain because she must've forgotten about our situation.

"The new project is a success. My company's gonna make a lot of money, Austin." She sighs before continuing, "but, if Ms. Mabel withdraws her shares, many of the other shareholders will withdraw too. The company will go down-"

"Exactly." I interrupt her, "Isn't that the reason why you got married to me? Stop being stubborn, Iris. Let's go to our room."

"But," she sits up on the couch and loses her balance but I hold her face before she could've face planted on the couch. "I can start again. I can build the company again now that the new project is a success. I can even pay back Ms. Mabel whatever I owe to her soon since, she paid back all the company's debts but-"

"Iris," I cut in again, "Are you only gonna think about yourself? What about me? I'm gonna be forced to take over her company or be forced to marry someone else. Forget about me," I know she doesn't give a fuck about me. "What about your promise? The contract we signed for marriage? The five years we promised her? Are you gonna go back on your words?"

"Can you let me complete?" She gives an annoyed expression. "I know I can't do that. I won't do that. I just told you that my company is in a better positi-" she starts to hiccup. "Water." She gets up from the couch but again falls back on it.

"I'll get it." Caroline heads to the kitchen. I search for her phone and it was thankfully beside me on the floor carpet.

"Yeah," I take a deep breath before continuing. "So, you just wanted to tell me that your company is in a better position now, right? Not that you would actually go against the contract right?" I make sure.

"Yea- yeah. I can't af-fford to pay for the br- breach of contract y-yet." She struggles to speak a sentence as she keeps hiccuping.

She gulps the water down completely that Caroline got her. Caroline takes her phone with the glass that Iris handed back to her as she heads back to the kitchen which panics me. I stand up on my feet and she looks at me. She shakes her head sideways as she comes near me and asks me to bend so that she could whisper in my ears. "I won't call but make sure you take her to your room with you. Don't break my trust, Austin." I nod with a smile. She looks down at Iris, "I'll make some hangover soup. Drink it before you sleep, okay?" She says to her and heads to the kitchen without waiting for Iris' response.

I get on my knees again to face Iris. "You're gonna come up to our room now?" I ask her without losing my patience yet and keep as calm as I can.

"I d- don't want to." She starts to cry out of no where. I cover my face with my palms and close my eyes in despair. God, what have I even done to her? We spent a lot of our time together happily which made me convinced that she doesn't actually hate me but now, I feel like crying too. She probably just pretended that she didn't hate me or I was just an idiot to think she didn't hate me.

"Why, Iris?!" I swallow a lump in my throat to prevent myself from crying because of the pain she's creating inside me.

"Because, y-you hate me." That's not true. I cup her face with my hands so that she could look into my eyes which she kept on avoiding from earlier.

"No, I don't." I shake my head denying her words. She takes a moment before exhaling sharply making me realise she had held in her breath for a long time. She takes my hands off from her face and breaks the eye contact again.

"You don't have to be a liar to make me feel better, Austin." Her hiccups seemed to have stopped but not her tears. "I know that you hate it when you see me on the same bed as you are on and I know you've been avoiding me because you want me out of your sight."

"That's not true, Iris." If she had travelled through my mind for just a minute, she wouldn't have spoken these words.

"Then, why are you avoiding me?" Before I speak up, she cuts in "No, you don't have to answer that. Infact, I don't even have the rights to ask you that. Honestly, it's better if you avoid me." She looks at me, wiping her tears. "I know that you are a kind person but you can express your true feelings towards me. I would- I would prefer you avoiding me over you faking your smile at me." She has no idea how wrong she is.

I hold her hands, which were on her lap, with mine and I look at her eyes deeply which are looking at mine before speaking, "If I said that I can't really avoid you anymore, if I said that I want to express my feelings openly from now on, if I said that I need you, then... would you accept me, Iris?"

We both fall silent yet again but neither of us break the eye contact. My heart clenches more by each passing second. Thoughts keep running in my mind which starts to make me feel uneasy and afraid. Maybe, I shouldn't have told her that. What if we drift apart because of my sudden and reckless confession? I don't want that to happen. I shouldn't have avoided her to start with.

"What are you saying, Austin?" She breaks the silence.

"Do you hate me, Iris?" I do not control my emotions anymore. "Do you find this marriage that intolerable? Am I being a burden to you?" Tears start to fall down my cheeks as her earlier words kept running in my mind. I hate to even think that I was being a burden to her.

"It's not like that, Austin. I thought this marriage was intolerable to you which made me feel like I was a nuisance to you and so..." She falls silent grabbing my hands tightly that held hers. "I'm sorry if I hurt you." She stops crying but I started crying.

She gets down from the couch to be on her knees and faces me directly without letting go of my hands. "You were never a burden to me, Austin. Never." She wipes my tears with her hands but I hold her hands to stop her from doing it because I'm not in my right mind, now.

"Are you sober now, Iris?" I ask, wiping the tears away that I didn't allow her to wipe. I can't believe I cried.

"I don't know." She looks at me with her sad and concerned eyes.

"Let's go sleep, please." I ask her one last time to which she finally nods. We both get up on our feet but she holds onto my arm to support herself. "Do you want me to carry you?" I ask, looking at her eyes which were swollen, yet beautiful. She nods and makes me smile. Genuinely smiling after crying is really one great feeling.

I carry her, in bridal style, heading to our room while I can feel her stare on me but I do not dare to look back at her.