(Soo I think I may be catching up with this writing. I have around 10 chapters left to write. And there will probably not be an epilogue because I wouldn't have enough words for it. And there wouldn't enough words for the last chapter. So it will probably be one. I was very proud of myself for writing a chapter in an hour. I was shocked. Once I write at least five of those last chapters you get a chapter every week! Enough of my rambling. Enjoy! xx)
I WAS A FAKE, that's what they were screaming
Yelling. Shrieking. Shouting.
Even all the scrunched up paper and all the food they threw at me had FAKE on it. I was a fraud. I was a phony.
There were so many people around me. They surrounded me like a swarm of bees and I couldn't breathe. The crowds of people around me felt like they were suffocating me.
It was like I was drowning in a sea of people. An ocean of blurred faces but very, very clear screams. They laughed at me, they laughed at how vulnerable and weak I looked. I couldn't blame them. They towered over me. I was an ant and they were giants.
Everybody knew. The entire world knew. Diego never loved me, he never even liked me. Everybody was right. And they mocked me because they knew that I liked him.
But he didn't like me.
It made the pain worse. It made it feel like it was slowly breaking me. A slow death is worse than a quick, swift one. If it's slow each second is agonisingly long, you know it's coming but time seems to drag your life on forever. When it's quick you just die. You don't even have time to think.
That's the problem. It's too slow. I'm thinking too much.
I'm seeing too much but also too little.
I couldn't see the faces but I knew they were there. I knew they were fans of Diego. I knew they hated me. But didn't everybody?
Fake.
Liar.
Fake.
The words kept ringing in my head and it hurt. A headache began to grow but the shouting never stopped. Why did I agree to the marriage in the first place?
Now I was humiliated. I hated being embarrassed in front of so many people. And then I saw them.
Diego and Lara.
He grabbed her by the hips and kissed her. I remember when he used to do that to me. Or did he? And the laughs continued.
Everybody hated me.
I hated myself.
And then there was an ear-piercingly loud scream. I looked around to find who it was when I realised.
It was me.
"FUCK WAKE UP!" My shoulders are shaken and my eyes snap open and I gasp.
Diego hovers above me, beads of sweat coating his forehead. He breathes a sigh of relief and rubs his thumb gently over my cheeks. Only then do I realise they were wet.
"What happened?" I croak.
"You were tossing and turning, and then you began crying and suddenly you screamed," Diego tells me, sitting back.
He grabs my waist and pulls me into his arms. He runs his fingers through my hair and presses a kiss on my head.
"You really scared me," He whispers.
"Sorry," I say softly.
"Are you okay?" He asks. I don't say anything. I lick my dry lips and clear my throat.
"You need to tell me," He says and I shake my head. He rolls his eyes. "You're insane if you think I'm going to let this nightmare pass," He says.
I was still shaking. The dream was so vivid. So real. Except for the blurry faces which I only realised now actually made no sense. But it was scary. I was always one of those people that cared more about what people thought of me than what I did.
I always cared about whether people liked me or not. I always tried so hard in high school to make sure that I never got on bad terms with anybody. I hated to be humiliated. I was insecure in high school, and I guess I'm not quite over it.
It's not like I was bullied in school (there was only the occasional teasing by some but they teased everybody) that my insecurity arose, it was more of a natural thing. My insecurity was a culmination of my own degrading thoughts.
You can't walk properly. You sit weirdly. You have a horrible voice. Nobody likes you.
And the likes.
People's thoughts about me were more important than my own. If somebody even whispered I would think that they were whispering about me, laughing at me.
"Tea?" Diego asks me.
I nod. He takes my hand gently as if he was afraid that i would shatter in his arms. I honestly felt a bit weak, fragile.
He leads me downstairs and presses the small red button on the kettle and it begins to boil. It was silent. My parents used to work until late at night and to avoid waking me up when they made tea (my mother) or coffee (my father) they decided a silent kettle would be perfect.
The kitchen was silent except for the sound of the mugs lightly hitting the granite counters. Diego tried to be as silent as possible but it wasn't working that well.
I played with my fingers in my lap, my dream replaying over and over again in my mind. I couldn't tell what part was scarier; when the blurred faced were shouting and laughing or when I saw Diego and Lara.
It hadn't occurred to me until tonight how much I feared Diego ultimately leaving me for Lara. She was probably more attractive and definitely more open for whatever Diego wanted.
I looked at Diego as he squeezed the tea bag. It seemed almost impossible to even imagine my life without him. Did I really like him that much?
Diego pushes the cup my way and I take a small sip and let out a small sigh through my lips.
"Thank you," I say softly and he sends me a smile.
"So tell me," He says sitting back on a stool, "your dream."
I shake my hand and he chuckles.
"You're adorable sweetheart," He laughs.
"Huh?" I raise my eyebrow.
"You think I'm going to let you waking up in tears slide? You were shaking and crying and then you screamed. You got me so fucking worried. You are going to tell me about that dream," he sounded so firm I was scared to not listen.
"Okay," I finally say and he smiles again.
So I began. I started with the reason why the dream affected me so much, my high school insecurity. And then I launched straight into the dream. I kept on speaking, the words a continuous flow until I got to the part about Diego. I stop myself.
"Tell me," Diego says in a calm but demanding tone. I bite my lip hard.
"You can't comment on it," I tell him.
"I won't make promises," He huffs.
I realise that he won't keep his mouth shut whether he promises or not. I take a deep breath and continue. I look at my tea the entire time, my grip on the mug tightening with each other.
"And then I screamed," I conclude.
My eyes were still concentrated on the tea. I take a sip to relieve my dry throat.
He wasn't saying anything and it worried me.
Was it because he thought it was pathetic? That I clearly didn't know what classified a nightmare? Or was it because he didn't know how to respond to the part with Lara and him?
My legs were starting to ache from standing. Why was I even still standing? I shake my head. Diego stands up and my heartbeat quickens. Was he just going to walk away?
But he doesn't.
He walks over and wraps his arms around me pulling me into his chest. I place my head on his chest, wrapping my hands around his back. He didn't need to say anything.
I could feel his heartbeat jumping through his shirt. It was enough. The reassurance that he was there, that maybe somewhere deep inside him there was a part of him that cared about me.
"I will always be here," he pauses, "whether we both like it or not." There was a humourous tone but I had a feeling there was an underlying meaning.
I'M NOT SURE when we went back to bed.
I'm not even sure when I woke up from the nightmare.
After the hug we went to the living room and we talked. First he wanted to know exactly why I was insecure.
"In my totally biased opinion there is absolutely nothing wrong with you," He told me.
"I mean look at you and then look at how fucked up I am," He adds.
And then I soon got sick of talking about me so much I changed the topic and made him talk about himself.
"I bought a piano," He said last night (or early this morning; who knows?).
His mother was a brilliant musician. She sang like angel, could expertly play the guitar and piano and then on top of it she could play instruments like the flute, oboe, drums and piccolo.
She taught Diego to play the piano and guitar (and damn was she a good teacher) and was going to teach him the flute when...she passed away.
"I hadn't played in years until that day. It inspired me to buy the piano,
A sense of pride filled my heart when he said that. I couldn't wait till I could force Diego to play the piano for me.
When we went to sleep Diego put his arm around my waist. It had been a while since we had slept like that.
My eyes flutter open as they adjust to the light. I turned my head slightly, a few locks of Diego's hair had fallen over his eyes and his mouth was slightly open. I was tempted to run my finger down his cheek (it seemed as if he wasn't real) covered in light stubble but I stopped myself.
The blanket barely covered us and both my shirt and shorts had ridden up. I turned my head again and sighed softly. It was a beautiful Sunday morning.
And that's when the knock sounded.
In a swift movement my shorts were back to my knees, my shirt covering my stomach completely and the blanket was up to my hips. And as the door handle was pulled downwards I pushed Diego to the other side of the bed -or rather kicked- and I pulled myself to the opposite end.
"The fu-" his curse was cut short by my mother's perky voice.
"Good morning!" she calls.
She frowns as she notices our positions.
"Dear me you look uncomfortable," She shakes her head, "well it must have been considering you guys sleep in separate beds at home,"
I just nod. In the corner of my eye I see Diego smirk.
"It's fine Mrs Castillo," he reassures her.
"You two can have a shower and then come down for breakfast. Afterwards we'll go for a walk to the lake,"
My parents lived in a complex, or rather an estate considering the size of the houses. There was a lot of land between each house so it didn't even feel like you lived on the same plot of land as another three dozen families.
If you walk for about a kilometre then you will come across the lake. It's probably the most peaceful place I've ever been to. It was the best place to read a book. There were also canoes that were open for use so I'm guessing my parents booked them for today.
"Thank you mother," I say and she smiles.
She puts two towels at the foot of the bed and walks out. I turn to Diego and he laughs.
"God if your mother knew,"
"Oh, and next time can you tell me before you bruise my legs," He says and I flush.
"Sorry," I say.
I eventually stretch my arms above my head and get out of the bed. My eyelids still felt a bit heavy but kt was nothing that a little bit of coffee couldn't solve.
I shower and put on a cream, thin long-sleeve shirt, blue jeans and my black takkies. I pull my hair into a ponytail and apply mascara to help with my tired look. When I exit I see Diego sitting on the bed on his phone.
"Marco?" I ask. He shakes his head with an I-wish look.
"Work. Being the CEO is actually quite a lot more work," He comments and I roll my eyes.
"Of course,"
He presses the screen a few more times before tucking it into his pocket.
"Let's go," He nods.
"Good morning Diego," Savannah was at the bottom of the staircase as soon as we got there.
"Morning," I say for him with a fake smile. I pull Diego with me to the table.
I wouldn't lose Diego to Lara and I sure as hell wouldn't lose him to Savannah.
Hiiii. I hope you enjoyed the chapter! I really liked the connection between the two of them by putting in the dream. Or rather nightmare. I know the nightmare doesn't really have anything necessarily violent but I didn't want anything dramatic.
It also shows that fear is different to people. And for her it's insecurity. A nightmare shows fear, no matter what the fear may be.
I hope you liked their moments in this chapter! They got very close. And it's a very important chapter for their relationship. Diego pretty much declared that he has no feelings for Lara.
See you soon! Also, don't you love Night & Day [Night Edition]????? I'm dying. Thanks for reading 🙈 Sorry for any errors 💚
~Lexy 😈