Fairytale Love? Kiss My Ass!

Episode 7

Well, hi! :p

Seven

My mouth fell open. What did he say? Did he really just say fiancé? I scowled, cursing.

“Rachel,” Raven whispered urgently, a warning in his tone. “Don’t be so loud. People are looking.”

Anger was starting to build inside of me. I bore my eyes unto Raven, trying to exert all that I was feeling. “Did you know that your asshole of a brother told me he liked me?” Seeing Raven’s unconvinced look, I continued, “His exact words? ‘I don’t only like you, Rachel, I miss you like hell. And I want to make it up to you.’ How dare he say that when he had a fiancé in another state? Only a Hansen can do that!”

Raven gritted his teeth. “Don’t put the blame on my last name, you lovesick puppy. And don’t blame my brother. It’s true, he likes you. But only as a best friend, not romantically! It’s actually just your fault why you’re so broken right now. You jumped to conclusions.”

My nose tingled and my vision blurred. It was dead silent between us for a while, he glaring at me with a passion, before I managed to croak out, “Is this what Tammi told you to do? Break me more?”

To my great surprise, his expression swiftly softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Not wanting to delve into this anymore, refusing to yell at him and tell him the truth about that fateful day, I just shook my head and blurted out a simple “Alright.”

He bobbed his head curtly. “Okay. Shoot.”

I thought about the many questions I had in store for him, and then I realised. There was a question that I swept far back in my mind a few days back, but somehow, it was itching to get out right now. I told myself not to let it out, but in the end I probed, “What’s Autumn like?”

It took exactly ten seconds for him to answer. And then he furrowed his eyebrows. “Who’s Autumn?”

“Maple,” I added, my own eyebrows creased. “Rylance’s fiancé.”

“Who the hell is Autumn Maple?” Raven demanded, riled all over again. “Well, technically, Rylance isn’t engaged. You can’t mean Dakota, can you?”

Plain shock crossed my expression and all I could do was stare at Raven like he suddenly grew a monkey nose out of nowhere. “Dakota? Who on earth is Dakota? And Rylance’s fiancé broke up with him?”

“I don’t–”

“Why don’t you start from the very beginning so that I can actually understand?” I interrupted, my mind swirling dizzily from all the confusion this situation brought upon me.

He peeked down at his watch all of a sudden. An air of farewell surrounded him instantly. “I have to go.”

The next thing that transpired was a blur to me.

Wait! I almost cried out, but my voice was dry. My voice was dry and I couldn’t speak, like someone else took my voice and was strangling me from within. My protests died on my throat, and just like that, just like that, I silently let Raven stand up from his chair and leave without another acknowledgement.

My mind was going in impending circles of doom, all of my trains of thought seemed to vanish in an instant, and I couldn’t process anything clearly. No, not with how my brain was functioning, or malfunctioning. But right now, even with my disability to think properly, I was positive about one thing: I, Rachel Beatrice Falls, never felt more broken than ever.

The time when Tammi would return, I was damn sure I’d tell her that instead of actually calming my nerves and answering my questions, Raven’s re-entrance in my life only added a shade to the darkness in this situation. Instead of actually making me feel better, all this had ever done was make me feel worse.