"I'm sorry for all the terrible things I've done to you and your family. I hope you can forgive me and I hope we can move on from this someday." Ruby said with her head tilted down to the ground. She had interlaced her fingers in front of her and had barely looked up the entire time she spoke.
I hadn't heard a hint of sarcasm in her apology but I was still suspicious of her. Ruby was a brilliant actor. She could cry on cue, just like that. There was no way I was buying her apology. I was done falling for her tricks.
"Tiara." My mom called and I cleared my throat as I realized they were all waiting for me to reply to Ruby's apology.
I wanted nothing more than to tell her to go to hell but I refrained from doing so. If I just accepted her apology or pretended to at least, she would leave and I'd never have to see her again.
"Apology accepted." I said plainly, ignoring the looks on my parents faces. They looked like they had things to say but didn't. They had promised me not to interfere.
"I'll make it up to you, I promise." Ruby said and I declined immediately, shaking my head.
"You don't have to! Let's just bury the hatchet and move on." I put on a fake smile, hoping that we could wrap this up quickly.
"Alright." My cousin looked up for the first time. She had a look of relief on her face. "On that note, I would actually like to invite you all to the launch party of my perfume line." She reached into her purse and pulled out a card.
"Launch party?" My mom questioned and Ruby nodded with a smile on her face.
"I understand if you won't be there. I just thought it would be a good opportunity for us all to have a fresh start." She said and I held back a scoff. It didn't take her too long to play the manipulation game. Fresh start she said. It was quite laughable how she had managed to put us in a tight spot. If we refused her invitation, we would have looked like a malicious bunch and she would have gone back to our extended family to complain about us.
"We'll be there." I said before anyone else could speak and took the invitation from her hand. Her smile grew wider after that and I held back an eye roll. It was really hard to forgive Ruby when it was so obvious that she never had any intentions of repenting. I had done so in the past but every time I had decided to give her another chance she made me regret it. It was really upsetting but I had learnt to never trust her even if she cried blood. Hopefully, my parents had learnt that valuable lesson as well.
"I apologize once again for my behavior, Aunt and Uncle." She turned to my parents who gave uncomfortable smiles. "Thank you so much. I'll text Tiara the additional details." With that said, she took her leave.
Benjamin gave a sigh as soon as we heard the front door close and Adiola hissed.
"You all saw what she did there, right?" I turned to my parents who shook their heads in disappointment.
"It's quite unfortunate that your cousin turned out that way but we should forgive and pray for her. It would do us no good if we harbour hatred in our hearts." Mom advised and dad nodded in agreement.
"It's so hard to forgive someone like that, mom. It's not that easy." Benjamin voiced my thoughts and I nodded in agreement with him.
"I never said it would be easy but we have to at least try. We need to forgive and forget." Mom went on giving us lessons on forgiveness for the next thirty minutes and I thought it was pointless trying to convince me to forgive Ruby. Of all the terrible things my cousin had done to me in the past, this was by far the worst of them. She had turned my entire family against me. She wanted to completely destroy me and she would have succeeded if I hadn't fought back. She was a horrible person truly and that was hard to forgive.
"Ah, whatever." I dismissed the thoughts as I pulled up to Tosin's block. She had called me over shortly after my mom had wrapped up her teaching and I wasted no time in leaving the house. She had sounded too serious and it had worried me. I was already stressed and couldn't handle anymore bad news.
I parked the car and headed up to her apartment. The door was unlocked when I arrived and I could hear Naborhi yelling. Something must have happened.
I took in a deep calming breath and prepared myself for the worst. Nothing could have been worse than Ruby showing up at my house.
"Hey, what's going on?" I asked as I walked into the living room and three young women turned in my direction.
"Can you believe this bullshit, Tiara?" Naborhi was the first to speak and Tosin who was seated across from her gave a sigh. Rachel, Tosin's reporter friend was the third person present and I sort of had an idea of what was going down.
"If this is about Derrek, I don't want to talk about it." I said as I settled down on the single couch to the right of the girls. I set my purse down on the side stool and crossed my arms. I was really positive that this was about Derrek and my head had began to hurt from stress.
"This is about him and you're going to want to hear this." Tosin said and I gave an annoyed sigh. They had called me all the way here because of Derrek. He was the last thing I wanted to talk about.
After our fight the last time, I had decided to forget about Derrek completely. He had said some untrue things that night and he had accused me of things that I hadn't done, things that I had no idea about. I didn't care why he had acted that way anymore. I just wanted to move on with my life, away from him.
"I really don't care, guys. If this is why you called me here, I'll just leave." I got up to my feet and grabbed my purse. I really couldn't handle any of the news they had for me. I felt like my head was about to explode.
"Tiara!" Tosin called as I began to walk out of the living room but I ignored her.
"Derrek lied to you! Please, listen to what Rachel has to say!" Naborhi called after me as she chased me to the door and I was starting to get really irritated.
"I don't care, Ana!" I yelled, loosing all my cool. "I don't care about Derrek and I don't care what bloody Rachel has to say! She's trying to source me for her story and I'm not giving her a damn thing! You hear me, Rachel? Piss off!"
"Tiara." Naborhi seemed taken aback by my outburst. "We're just trying to help you."
"I don't need your help, Ana! Just leave me the hell alone!" I yelled once again, even more irritated. They were meddling in my business again. I didn't want them meddling in my affairs. Nothing good ever came out from it. I just needed to be left alone.
I turned away from Naborhi immediately and stormed out of the apartment. I felt like I was about to explode and all I wanted to do was scream.
I barely made it down the street when I felt overwhelmed by everything. All of my bottled up emotions had finally exploded and I felt the overpowering need to scream.
I parked my car by the side of the road and let out a loud scream, hitting the steering wheel as hard as I could with my balled up fist. I repeated the process until my hand hurt and my throat became sore, then, I took in a few breaths to calm myself down but as soon as my breathing normalized, tears came falling down. I had no idea how long I had cried for but I had felt slightly better after I was done.
I started up my car and drove down to a destination unknown. I couldn't go home while I was in this mood. I just needed to be alone, so, I just went wherever the wind blew.
An hour later, I found myself at the beach. The sea looked really peaceful and the cool breeze against my skin had been therapeutic.
I took a walk down to the shore and had a long talk with myself about my life's choices and how much I had regretted them. I cried several times as I had been reminded of how big of a mess my life was.
I didn't seem to have any direction in my life. I had tried to make something of my life but I had never succeeded. I couldn't even get myself a decent man and had ended up in a false relationship to impress everyone around me, so, they didn't think of me as a complete failure and look where that had gotten me.
I wanted a do over. I needed a do over. One without Derrek, one where I didn't feel the need to impress everyone around me, one where I could succeed doing what I loved the most but time was never going to turn back the clock. I had made bad decisions and I had to live with them, however, I got to choose what happened from here on out.
I was going to focus on my art and I was going to paint the best damn painting the world had ever seen. That would have been a start in the "turning my life around" movement I was embarking.
I sat up on the sand and stared back out at the sea, admiring the vast body of water. It would have been a nice moment if a certain annoying voice hadn't interrupted it.
"I knew I smelt a rat." The very familiar voice spoke and I gave a heavy sigh. It was like the universe was testing me.
"Chioma, it's good to see you again." I glanced up at my long time nemesis.
"You're a mess, Tiara. Why do you look homeless?" Chioma sneered at me and I chose to ignore her.
I refocused my sight at the sea, hoping she would just walk away but of course that was never going to happen.
"I heard that Derrek dumped you. I'm so glad he came back to his senses and hauled ass away from you. Too bad for you though. You were almost relevant." Chioma laughed and I bit my lip to stop myself from firing back at her. She wasn't worth it.
Taking yet another calming breath, I got up to my feet. I dusted the sand off my jeans before facing Chioma. She had a smirk on her face.
"You know, it's been over ten years now and I don't know about you but I am sick and tired of this toxic routine." I said what I've been wanting to say to her for a long time. "Aren't you tired of always picking on me? Don't you ever get bored of it cause I'm bored, I'm very bored and tired of all of this toxicity, so, I will no longer partake in this thing with you. If you want to keep on throwing insults at me, just know you'll be hitting a brick wall from now on."
"Whatever. You're no fun anyway." Chioma rolled her eyes and walked away, leaving me completely stunned. That had been the very first time that Chioma and I hadn't gotten into some kind of fight. Had that been it? This entire time, if I had chosen not to engage Chioma, would she have just walked away or was today an off day for her?
I shook my head in disbelief as I watched Chioma catwalk on the sand with her kimono blowing in the wind. For the first time in my life, I didn't feel any anger or hate towards her. I was actually relieved.
I felt my phone buzz in my pocket and I drew my eyes away from Chioma as I fished out my phone. I unlocked my phone to see a message from none other than Derrek Dune.
Derrek Dune: We need to talk.