The Story of Everybody Else

Resentment

"My, my, dear you should’ve smiled more. You looked older than your age,” Mrs. Connors, my landlady, said to me. She always had a say to a lot of things and that included how I should live my life.

We were celebrating my first month in the County. Time flew by so fast when you got so busy with things you thought that matter the most to survive – work.

“Well, I am my boss’ stress ball for a month now. I wished he could be a little bit nicer to me,” I said. Then, I took a sip of her home-made lemonade. Yummy.

“I thought both of you share this romantic connection. Just try flirt a little.” Mrs. Connors could be a little pushy at times. I found it cute, charming and annoying at the same time.

I coughed at her comment. She seemed to be the only who found the whole thing about me as hilarious.

“Puh-lease, I don’t want to die early. Just not him, madam.”

I lifted my legs and rested them on my seat. It was a good thing I was tiny, I could fit in a chair in a hook position. I felt so comfortable.

“Oh, well then, who else? I don’t know any man around your age in Mckane who’s perfectly capable of having a good, fruitful relationship with you” she started at me intently, accusingly.

I jerked at her reaction a little. “Romance…? Hmm…” I thought deeply about it.

My last rendezvous with romance was a month ago already. I never saw Ed since the encounter in the hospital. Yeah, I heard his voice once in a while when he called in the office. But, he didn’t seem to have any recollection that it was I whom he was speaking to. I found it odd, he didn’t even ask for my name the whole time.

I took a glimpse of Mrs. Connors and she was enjoying her juice as well. We were feeling lazy that afternoon so we decided to hang out in the porch for a while. Then, it hit me.

“Uhm, I have this guy in mind.”

I saw her blue eyes sparked a little. “Yes? Who is it? Tell me, darling” she leaned closer to me and landed a hand on my knee.

I recoiled lightly and looked at her with my puppy brown eyes. “Is there any chance that you know this Eduardo Castilogne.”

Her once lit face became dull in an instant.

“Oh” she said. “That rascal of a boy he is.”

I bounced from my seat and sat straight to face her. “You know him?! Tell me about him!”

I was getting excited. Why not? It was the first time I ever talked to someone about Ed.

“Why? Are you interested in him? Oh, spare yourself some dignity child. He’s not worth it.”

Her mood became sullen. I couldn’t sense where it was coming from. I waited patiently for her response. I wanted her to talk more about him.

“Yes, he is charming. But what happened five years ago is something that really left a mark in his family’s honor.”

I frowned. I couldn’t really catch up where this conversation was going. “Why? Tell me.”

She breathed in and finished the last drop of her juice before she answered.

“Ed used to be one of the most eligible and sought for bachelors in town. But he, for some reason,  burnt down their manor, killing his whole family and the hunders of servants who lived there. He was the only known Castilogne left in the county since then. Everybody despised him except for the McKanes.”

I gasped. I could feel my chest tightened in dismay. I didn't saw this big revelation coming.

“Was it arson that happened?”

She shook her head lightly. “I don’t know child. Nobody knows except for the fact that he was the one caught starting the fire. And he was a real genius since his plan was carried out successfully. It earned him the family’s fortune. It was his intention, everybody thought about it.”

“That’s insane. But why did not the Mckanes hate him like you do,” were the words that I could only blurt out. I wanted to dig in deeper but my rational mind was telling me to shut it.

“I know right. The town thought of him as a spy of Mckanes. They had this rivalry ever since. That's all I know. You know what, you shouldn’t be fooled by that man’s charm. He can be charming and all but you’ll never truly know a man’s value from the surface.”

Then she collected the glasses and went inside. I was left in the porch alone, with my thoughts. I still couldn't believe what I learned just a while ago.

“The deeper I fall, the harder it is for me to climb back to reality.”

My image of Ed was now filled with greediness and insatiability. I felt saddened in an instant. My heart had been taken away by a criminal. And he even told me that he just got out of prison! I should’ve believed in that.

My days will now pass with my heart  filled with sorrow.

It was stupid of me to hold on to such a fragile thing called hope – hope to fall in love deeply to the stranger I met on my way to McKane and for him to reciprocate that love. But everything about that dream was now filled with grim and filth from the restless souls of the victims of the crime he committed.

That night, I found it hard to fall asleep. I sat on the bed and stared at Cecilia and Mr. McKane’s picture. I found myself pondering on what their situation used to be like.

Mr. McKane was a wealthy man from an honorable family. How on earth did he come to love Cecilia, a child of misfortune? They must have endured a lot of things to last until marriage. She even carried his child! I only witnessed that kind of love in chick flicks that the industry in Hollywood fed to young women like me. Pathetic!

I just had a brief encounter with Ed but his effect on me seemed to last a lifetime. I was not certain that he thought the same way because if he ever did, he must’ve come a long way to find me. But he didn’t. And that hurt the most.

I grabbed the picture and hugged it tightly against my chest.

“I wish I could have a love like you two had.”

The morning that followed was an ordinary one. I greeted my folks in the little hill house and went to work. My resentments from last night seemed to have vanished in memory.

I came up with a resolution.

From now on and the day forward, I would not waste my life sulking in the corner and indulging in my misery. A new day calls for a new beginning! A new hope for a new love!

I breathed in deeply as if I was letting in all the positivities inside me. I felt like I was more than ready to face my insolent employer. 

When I walked inside the clinic, he was already there - sitting sleazily on the couch with a cup of coffee on hand. He seemed to be engrossed in his thoughts before I came in. I was about to greet him when he looked up to me and said “Good shape! You seemed pumped up today. Did you have a good sex last night?”

My jaw dropped at my boss’ greeting. I just arrived in the clinic and my sex life became the talk of the hour. Wow, just wow.

“Good morning to you too, chief!” I greeted back, hesitant to answer his rhetorical question.

What a jerk!