To @cinderella-is-me, for the song "Jar of Hearts," the perfect song for rejecting someone. I didn't know there's such a wonderful heartbreaking song as this until you introduced this to me. Every time I sing this song, I feel like I'm Thea, singing for Nigel Joaquin.
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~~~ CHAPTER 33 - HOME ~~~
Since it was summertime and I had no classes, I had to work now full time in the shop.
I was not myself the whole week after the Marianne Orphanage Foundation celebration.
At work, I was disoriented. I kind of missed measurements of my cake ingredients. My co-workers complained the tastes of my cakes but when I tasted them myself, I couldn't see what exactly was wrong. Mrs. Riviera offered me a leave and so I was absent for two days.
By the weekend, I went to the orphanage with Mrs. Riviera. I knew she and Mother Clarita observed the changes in me as well but they never forced me to speak up. My visit at Marianne Orphanage was a normal Saturday for me. We went to our usual activities and I spent storytelling with the children. Fortunately, there were no VIP's this time or else I had to face one annoying person again.
I was like that for the whole week until I finally said to myself, "Enough is enough!"
Like the master controller that I was, I compelled myself to go back to my previous ways.
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The following weekend, I visited again the orphanage. I came to realize that God made me an orphan to let myself connect with the children. As usual, just like what we always did, the children gathered around me in the classroom to listen to a story. We all sat on the carpeted floor. This was the time that I had to make up again a fairy tale.
"...So the poor princess left the mean prince. She never came back," I wrapped up my story and all of them around me had their big eyes on me. Most of them were sad.
"Is that the end?" One cute girl in my right side asked when I no longer said a word.
"Yes, Abby, that was the end," I replied.
"Ohh... that was sad..." another girl mused, putting her cheek on her palm. "Why are your stories always sad, Big Sis?"
I managed to give her a smile. "Because some things are meant to have sad endings... because some couples are just not meant for each other... because 'he and she' to be together is one big mistake..." I said, trying to recall who told me that particular line in the past. I closed my eyes. I could still picture him out vividly in my mind when he said those words to me.
"Big Sis, are princes really mean?" Abby, the cute girl, asked which made me open my eyes.
"No, not all of them. The mean ones are just those who are blind... those who don't see clearly the value of others," I answered, brushing her hair.
"Some mean princes do know how to regret and repent. And when they do, they look for their runaway princesses." A familiar male voice joined in the conversation. The children and I turned to the direction of the doorway where the voice came from.
Crap.
You bet, it was the meanest prince on earth --- Nigel Sarmiento! He was there standing by the doorway, watching the kids and me sitting on the floor.
"Oh, he looks like a prince!" One girl dreamily quipped.
He was here? The buried soul?
Hadn't I told him to not come back anymore? Why was he here again?
Was he even serious when he said he wasn't here only for the children? That he was here for me? That he was here to claim me back? He wanted me back?
Why? Claim me back... like he actually regarded me as his before?
I stood up and a mixture of different emotions came surging in my chest.
Regret. Repent. Two big words coming from him. Would you really believe him? That egotistical jerk who had pride as high as Mt. Everest!
"Oh, kids, I forgot the most important thing in the ending of our fairy tale," I said when I thought of something to mock the man before me.
"What is it, Big Sis?" they asked, almost in chorus.
"The poor princess left the mean prince. She never came back and..." I paused and looked at Nigel, "the prince lived happily ever after. The End," I added in a taunting tone.
The children groaned.
"How could he?" Abby mused.
Not entertaining Abby's innocent question and not waiting for any reaction from Nigel, I walked away from him and the kids and found another doorway leading to the receiving area of the orphanage.
I could just NOT face him right now! No way!
He was supposed to be a happy prince by now, so what was he doing here?
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With great strides, I reached the receiving area. I stopped in the middle of the room and pacified myself. Here I went again running away from him. Whatever happened to my expertise in self-control?
"Althea," he called me out. Okay, so he pursued me. The jerk pursued me. Why the heck was he here?
I turned around and saw him by the doorway with a sad look in his eyes. It was unbelievable to see that kind of look!
"What do you want? Haven't I told you to not show your face again to me? What are you doing here then?"
He was silent for a while as if trying to put his words together, then he moved closer.
"C-come home," he said, trying to clear his throat.
I looked at him in disbelief. After two years of not seeing each other, he would just barge in and tell me to, what, come home!
Did I just hear him say 'Come home'?
"Do you hear what you're saying right now?" I managed to speak up after seconds of contemplation.
He cleared his throat again yet it took him like forever before being able to manage to talk.
I stared at his face --- seriously scrutinized his damn face just like how I scrutinized it when we were in the playground the first time we saw each other again. Physically, he was still the same ravishingly handsome "heartbreaker" that I knew... He had just turned twenty-six now... more mature-looking than two years ago, of course, but still so undeniably and irresistably hot...
But, somehow, there was something in the way that he was looking at me now, even with the way he spoke. I sensed a hint of meekness and surrender which were very unusual of the coldhearted and arrogant Nigel Sarmiento that I knew all my life.
"Just why do I need to go back to the palacio?" I spoke, giving him a sardonic glance. Then, I turned around from him, not wanting to show him how he still had that effect in me. Because, no matter how hard I tried, it surprised me to a really considerable degree that even until now, after two years, his presence still sent shivers into my body, my heart, my soul, my whole system.
And with him pleading to me now? Oh, I felt a thousand detonated bombs in my chest wanting to get out, seeking for freedom. I felt I was going to explode... in so much pain. I just couldn't take it! Who told him to come here anytime he wanted to?
I tightly clenched my fingers as I felt my hands trembling at my sides. All the pains and heartaches I buried in all these years seemed to awaken from their cold somber grave. I tried so hard to bury it down there --- deep, so deep down there.
Yet he was here! His presence was just too good to be true. He was like a dream, too surreal to conceive and believe. But, more than the pain and disbelief that I felt, it was the strong thumping of my heart that I couldn't fathom, and, all because of his pleading nature. This was not good. I needed to fight, to resist the freaking temptations, for if I wouldn't, I didn't think I could still trust my heart.
Why? Why had he to look for me now? I had already started to learn to stand on my own. I was better off alone now.
"Althea," I heard him talk behind my back, "let's get married now." His pronouncement surprisingly went smoothly despite of the awkward, tensive tone in his voice.
What? Get married?
As in GET MARRIED?
Did he really hear what he was talking right now?
What a way to propose, huh?
Proposing without the damn ring! The damn ring!
So whatever happens to your beloved Maria Stella?
All of a sudden, I felt like the bombs creeping in my heart had just finally exploded!
Was I actually hearing those words? Just what was he thinking?
"This time, it's for real," he declared, still smoothly. How did he ever do that? "We started out so wrong before. Let's make it right and... real this time."
I span around to face him and scrutinize his countenance. He looked like he had just stated something coming from his heart. Should I believe him?
Oh, come on, don't let me believe on this act.
"Seriously?" I challenged him. "After all what you did, you just say those words simply as if nothing has happened? Like nothing has ever, ever happened? Well, cut it! I'm not going back to the palacio and I'm not marrying you! What are you thinking?" I said candidly.
After announcing to everyone that I was his future bride, I would discover that everything was just for a show! Well, but my lowly heart would never again believe this proud master in front of me!
Was he in the mission of crushing again my heart?
Not wanting to hear any more words from him, I decided to walk out on him in the receiving area of the orphanage. I just had to stay away from him as soon as possible.
But Nigel quickly took hold of my right elbow.
"Althea, please..." he sounded like he was struggling for words to say as his hard, unsteady breathing tickled my right ear, "come home with me, please."
HOME? That word again.
Oh, didn't he know how hard it was for me to perceive such word in my ears? It was the most difficult word in my whole damn freaking stock of vocabulary! Because that word was a big tear in my heart... because, aside from all the things he did to me in the past, there was one thing that I couldn't delete completely from my bugging conscience --- and that was to leave one very important person there who didn't deserve my abandonment... and I didn't know if I could still face her after what I did.
There was no way that I could face her again --- my foster mother --- Mommy Carol. She might have cursed me two years ago after discovering that I ran away without her knowledge. I didn't exactly know how she reacted --- if she hated me that much, if she wanted me out of her life forever. That was why I could never face her again. Like ever.
Finding strength in me, I tried to let go of Nigel's hand away from me yet the more I pushed him away, the more that he pulled me closer to him. His other hand dutifully found the perfect fit to encircle it around my waist so that my back was crushed to his sturdy chest. God, the familiar palpitations in my heart which I had buried a long time ago creeped again and again in my chest like a crazy windmill churning and turning even without the wind.
Unexpectedly, Nigel leaned his face down to my right ear and whispered softly, "I want you back, princess."
Princess?
That mockery!
I inhaled and exhaled deeply. "Let go of me now," I said firmly.
He didn't listen to me. He was still hugging me from behind.
I closed my eyes as I said, "I'm better off alone now, without you... so please, go away."
Take note, I had just said it with no single tear. I was brave now --- so much braver and stronger than before.
"Mr. Sarmiento? Thea?" All of a sudden, two female voices pronounced our names. Mother Clarita and Mrs. Riviera, both with wide disbelieving eyes, were staring at the both of us.
Oh, busted!
How were you going to explain now to these dear women why the VIP was hugging the volunteer from her back?
Great, right?
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Nigel pulled back and we both paid attention to the two women who were looking at the both of us in utter shock.
"Mr. Sarmiento?" Mother Clarita, with one brow raised, called out Nigel in a questioning tone. Obviously, she was demanding an explanation from him.
I searched Nigel's eyes and gave him an accusing look. Why do you always put me in hot situations, you freaking bastard! You never change!
He bit his lower lip and stared me down.
Hello! Mother Clarita is waiting for your explanation!
I surrendered from his stare and faced the two women again. "M-mother..." What happened? I couldn't even open my mouth now in continuation.
"I'm sorry, Mother, if I haven't told you about this," Nigel finally spoke out. He placed his hands in his pockets. "Miss Althea Ruiz, your volunteer, is my long lost fiancèe and I come to take her home."
Crap.
He was really serious in this? He was really to take me back home? To the palacio? To The Fields?
NO WAY.
NO WAY, NIGEL JOAQUIN!
I'm not going back to the palacio with you...
Like OVER MY DEAD BODY.
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A/N
Hello, world!
Here's my little secret. I actually wrote the flash-forward before anything else in this book, you know, that part before Chapter 1. It's because my mind already pictured out what is to happen and so revealed it in the beginning. Then, came the challenge. How was I going to put everything in place just as how I laid it down from the very start? So, this chapter becomes the answer to the question.
So, everyone, hope you enjoyed this one! Don't forget to VOTE, COMMENT, and SHARE!
If I'll be through with the chapter I'm currently working on right now, I'm going to give you two updates on Friday or Saturday. I'm not going to make a promise but I really hope I can update twice next week.
Lovelots,
(sapphiregirl22) ~_^