Liya
I requested Chase to bring me to Luka's house. I was eventually going to go after work and if I was to take a few days to process whatever had just happened it would be a waste.
A waste of grief over morons who took advantage of me when they were supposed to be my family.
Chase was hesitant in entering Luka's house and I didn't force him either. He was going to eventually come in. A blast set off in my heart the moment I saw mine and his home come to my sight. It was like he had left it.
My first instinct was to walk to the garden. The garden of roses he had made for me. The roses had bloomed even more. Bigger, and redder.
They looked more abundant, alive and happy. The strong scent reached my nostrils nicely.
"This was where I came for my morning and evening runs," Chase spoke behind me.
My head looks to him, recalling the moment he had seen me and Luka dance in this same garden, in each other arms. I recall his jaw clenched so tight he wanted it to break.
Turning back to the flowers. I ran my hand over the roses.
"I told him this garden was beautiful," my voice softly spoke recalling back to the moment.
"And he said not more than you," Chase finished off with a painful chuckle.
"How did you know?" I turned my head back to him because he wasn't there when he said that to me.
"Nothing ever fazed him more than you," his eyes hardened but his words only came out soft.
I looked back to the garden of roses. I must have been a real idiot if I thought it was normal for friends to plant an entire garden of each other's favourite flowers. No one does that these days.
"You must have known... every bit of his feelings for me," my mouth was so hesitant to ask him.
"I did," he agreed.
Moving along these roses slowly, his steps crunched on the grass behind me.
"There wasn't a moment where he didn't think about you, or talk about you. When you weren't with him, he missed you. When you were with him, he couldn't get enough of you," Chase expressed, making my heart flutter.
"You're something so unreal. No one can ever get enough of you, Strawberry," his tone became solid and concrete.
"Even you?" my steps stop for his answer.
A few seconds of silence eroded between us. I didn't dare to turn and look at him for my answer. I didn't deserve it.
"Even me," he confessed, breaking the silence.
Without another word, I continued to brush through these roses. I wanted to keep these alive. It was a part of Luka I had.
I wanted to move back here. This was my home and always had been from the moment Luka gave me a new life. Walking into the house, I walked up the stairs he would scold me at for not wearing shoes.
Slowly approaching his room, my heart clenched painfully. Tears were only seconds away from reaching my eyes once I entered his room. It was dark. My hand goes to flick the light on. It had not been cleaned.
"Mira said, that the night he..." Chase couldn't bear to say the word.
"He said that no one was allowed to clean his room, but you. Not even his mother," he told.
Luka always hated it when anyone cleaned his room because they wouldn't know where to put things.
But Luka also lived like a messy guy so obviously his room needed weekly cleanings. He never complained when I did it. Even if I had misplaced things.
"He only liked it when I cleaned his room," the pain abrupted into my voice.
Walking further in, I headed into his closet. His scent was still there. So strong in his shirts. I took my dress off and took one of his shirts out of the hanger.
A white one. He looked like an absolute gentleman in white. It was also the shirt he wore to our beach night on my birthday.
Buttoning it up slowly, I scrunched it around my nose. Sniffing it with greed. Tears flowed out of my eyes and down my cheek.
Chase had left the room. It was an unbearable event for him, I guess. But I wanted to greedily be here. It felt like his presence was strong here.
Walking out of the wardrobe, I looked towards his messy bed. It was the only messy thing. Nothing in this room had been broken. Looking around the ceiling, I wondered if I was on his mind in his last moments.
Still abruptly restless in my soul because he had not let a single soul know why he made that decision. I had changed his sheets and dusted the room. I didn't have the courage to mop it yet. His body had touched this floor and I didn't want to just let it go.
The frame on his side table stood up. It was a photo of us. We didn't have many photos together and if we did, we were both far apart.
But this was the first photo we had taken together. On my birthday this year. I reached for it. His smile was so bright and gorgeous that it started paining my heart.
"My sweet darling," my voice called out softly, kissing his face through the frame.
Holding it to my chest, I laid myself in his bed. Luka only ever slept on the left sight because he knew I could only sleep on the right.
God, there were so many signs. How did I not know?
But would things have been any different after finding out, considering my relationship with Chase? This debate made my mind dull. Because the answer was no.
I would have pushed them both away. No matter how hard I tried to run from it, I was always indecisive between the both of them. And they deserved so much better than that.
✯¸.•'*¨'*•✿ ✿•*'¨*'•.¸✯
"Chase," I looked around the house for him the next morning.
He was nowhere to be found but his car was here. He must have gone for a walk. This empty house didn't run to bite me though. I decided to make us both breakfast in the meantime.
Going into this kitchen reminded me of how Luka would get up early morning to make me my favourite strawberry cake. To just have the taste of a strawberry cake made by him again filled me. It's always going to be my favourite thing.
Luka had a pancake mix that wasn't expired. He also had honey and maple syrup. I guess that's what we're going to have to go with.
After making them, I put the food on the dining table and turned on the TV. Curiosity got the best of me with the fire Chase set yesterday.
"Mrs Dalton, what do you have to say about this sudden disappearance of your husband and then your sons being burnt down in the warehouse?" my aunt was questioned.
She wore makeup. Heavy full coverage makeup. Her sons had been hitting her.
"Who was going to take over this business now?" they asked.
"This business was never my husband's. It belonged to his late brother, Anderson Dalton," she said.
"Today, in this media I have something to confess," her voice, bold and courageous.
"My late sister's and brother-in-law's death was not an accident. My husband's disappearance and my son's death was not an accident," my eyes widened at her words.
She was going to reveal everything. My stomach clenched all the liquid and left it.
"My husband is the murderer," she confesses passionately, leaving the whole press in gasps.
"He wanted to take the business and all of Anderson's success. I'd like to openly apologise to his daughter, Liya Dalton who had been abused by my sons and husband, every day when she was with us," tears rolled down her cheek and mine too.
My body collapsed to the floor as I felt a comforting arm wrap around my shoulder for support.
"My parents," my heart ached, hiding the burden that could no longer be hidden.
"He took everything away from me, Chase," I cried looking at him.
"I'm so sorry," his voice shivered, taking me into his arms.
"I watched him abuse my mother. My father was unaware of it all and when he found out that night. They both died," I sobbed into his arms, haunted by my childhood.
I was so helpless back then. That disgusting moron consistently raped my mother in my own child bed. In my room on those nights, she decided to stay with me.
Her body feared beneath that monster the way mine did. Her soft cries that she muffled in the pillow when putting me to sleep once he had left.
"I wish I was with them that night," these words dug like a knife through his heart.
His hand came up to stop me from talking further.
"Don't ever speak of your death, Strawberry. I'll be deep in my grave before your death. Luka's is bearable but yours will drive me mentally insane," his voice shook my heart.
His thumb wipes my tears away, staring so deeply into my eyes. Those deep brown eyes stared at me with unspoken words of his mind and heart. This was all I had left.
*Later that evening*
Luka's doorbell had rung after dinner. Chase wasn't roaming around in front of me. I went to open the door and found my auntie. She instantly took me into her arms, kissing me all over my face like my mother would have.
"Liya," she cries as if I was her daughter.
She didn't have one. She only had three monstrous sons. I had taken her in, to the living room.
"Did you see the news?" she asked, in the hope that the burden on my heart had gotten lighter.
"Thank you," my voice softly appreciated.
"I'm sorry for being too late to do this. Getting hands on the evidence was hard," she said, taking my hand in hers.
"You should be thanking Chase. He got his hands on the evidence David had locked up and gave it in my hands," Auntie revealed, which took me in shock.
Chase? I hadn't told Chase about my parents' murder.He only knew of David torturing my mother in front of my eyes. I hadn't utteredthis secret to a single soul because David would have destroyed me.
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