Serilda
Picking up my glass of champagne I look at Chyna as she gets up and move towards the corner of the hall getting ready to give the best speech of her life for my dearest sister-in-law. She just stands there waiting for the screen to lit up with those beautiful images of her beginning from her infancy to the moment until now.
"Good evening everyone," she greets cheerfully and no one could even imagine about the shit that went in her mind.
"So, tomorrow is the big day. I think we should give applause for the lovely couple to be?" Like morons, everyone started to clap while I just gave a small smile. If I started with clapping mine would have been the thousand in a sea of many as I was too excited.
"I'm so not here for my brother though. He is my dearest brother but he had been easily replaced by Serena and he himself did that, so don't you dare blame anyone else," she chuckled. "Serena is just like a sister I had never had but I'm glad about the fact she isn't my real sister. I assure you we would have fought a lot in our childhood then," some laughed at her statement.
"So yeah I'm more than in content in having in her life right at this moment when I'm grown up and mature," she added laughingly.
"She has been surely the best addition to this family I could have asked for. There really couldn't have been anyone better than her. She is the best. She loves someone from the deepest of her heart and she doesn't ever really gives up on the people she love," Chyna's word held a deep meaning as she looked straight at me.
"I'm going to take you both through the journey of their life. As always ladies first," She said smiling and the screen lit up with the baby photos of the beautiful she-devil. Never would have anyone thought that such a beautiful baby could have been turned so bitter.
"Wasn't she cute?" Chyna asks and few smiles lit up on people's face.
"She was a beautiful child as we all can see and as her parents told not much of a crier. She was a happy child. Wild spirited, explorer, adventurous and the best child parents could have asked for," the photos moved forward with age. I wanted to laugh at those words, the best child parents could have asked for, really? Gone was the sweet baby being replaced by the photographs of early childhood.
"Serena had discovered and loved so much in life that there is no limit. There is nothing she hadn't tried. Fishing, jumping, sky diving, horse riding and much more. You name it and she had done it all. She was in real words adventurous and true spirited," Yeah that she was but Chyna was missing things like drugs, jail, cocaine and the list could go on. Running away from home. Teenager her had taken up the screen and there wasn't many photos up to see there. I mean how could there be she was always running and doing illegal things in that age.
"There wasn't a person who could have hated her. She loved everyone which was reciprocated by everyone she openly loved. She lived the life and didn't let it rule it. Travelled the world, found the best and thrived for it. A few years later down the road, she found the love of her life," I sat up straight in my seat. This. Was. It.
"With my brother," Chyna looked at me and my eyes widened. She was fucking shitting. What the fuck she was doing. "Touching my brother's life she lit it up, made it brighter and lively. With every decision he took, she stood by him. She was his friend, his love and in true words his soul mate." I was seething from inside. Pictures of her and Nathaniel played on the screen. I wanted to laugh out like a crazy person. I was a fucking fool in believing her. My eyes looked at her but Chyna was just smiling. I was having a fucking heart attack sitting right there and she was fucking smiling. She was fucking betraying me. My thoughts came to a halt when I heard someone gasp. My eyes snapped to the person it was my mother and everyone eyes were glued to the screen. I turned to see it and I realised that I had to eat up my own words. There on the screen was my dearest husband in a comprising position with my sister. The date down there highlighted with the bright red, six months after our marriage. The wedding band glimmering in the photo.
"There isn't any denying in the love they hold for each other," Chyna says looking at Serena at smiling who has eyes welled with tears of sadness with hand over her lips. My mother's ashen face with that of my father's. Disbelief lurked in their eyes. I didn't dare look at Erik. He had to be fuming and glaring at me. I looked at the sea of people in front of me looking at the screen as if it was the most intriguing thing they had seen. Faces painted with anger, distaste and hatred looked at the screen. Some glared at Serena as they passed on with the pictures. Chyna stopped her speech slowly gently with an undertone of surprise and slowly turned to look up at the screen. She acted the part so well that there wasn't a pint of doubt that could have been placed on her.
"How?" She whispered in the mic before dropping it. The photographs changed and changed putting the secret affair out for this society to see who had made Serena stand high up on a stand where she couldn't be touched. The atmosphere turned from happiness to that of general distaste towards my sister and husband. There wasn't nothing that I didn't love in that moment. Erik snapped and stood up from his seat moving towards the laptop but sadly Nathaniel beat him to it. He plugged out al the wires at once with anger burning in his eyes. The screen stopped. He was breathing it in and it has been the first time I've seen him like this, full with emotions. Without wasting a second, he picked up the mic.
"Whoever the fucking hell is doing this I want them to stop. This is in no kind funny. This is ruining people life's so stop this fucking madness," he yelled out the warning and knew it well it was for me with the way he glared at me. "Whatever has happened has happened in the past. We all have a fucking past and Serena had one too. We all need to respect that. There is no hiding in the information that Serena and Erik were engaged but that was past. Now she is engaged to me and that's all matters. So, I want this nuisance to end right here and right now. I don't care about what you all think. Tomorrow is the wedding and if you want to attend then come with happy faces or else you can show yourself out,"
"If this was the past, then why does Erik have a wedding band on his finger," With a varying glance to Serena Chyna asks her brother looking shocked at the left stilled picture of Erik an Serena. I must say Chyna had a brilliant acting skill
"Chyna not fucking right now," he snapped.
"I think I would like to know the answer to that question too," Nathaniel's mother, Ciara stood up from her seat asking her son the question angrily.
"Mom, please," Nathaniel pleaded with her mother.
"Stop it, Nathaniel. Serena is going to be a part of our family, holding our name and I think I have the right to know what has been really going on. First the hatred she spewed in the morning while being in the arms of her sister's husband and the proof of infidelity being showcased right now for everyone," Ciara didn't hold back a bit as she glared at Serena. With her head high and graceful walk she stood in front of his son.
"I have had a lot of drama today, Nathaniel. I want to know what the truth is. If these thing have come to light I think the truth should too or else it would be us ending up to be the laughing stock. Don't you dare say that you don't care because I do," I could see where Chyna's good traits came from. Nathaniel looked at his mother with disbelief but then closed his eyes and breathed out a sigh.
"Serena and I had always had an open relationship until the day I proposed her for marriage. We weren't the normal kind of couple. I knew that Serena was having an affair with Erik and it didn't matter much to me because of our open relationship. I knew it was wrong to be involved with a man who was married and that too to her own sister but they had been lovers," his word stunned me but the thundering sound of a slap shocked me more. Ciara had slapped her son just right there in front of everyone. What kind of a person was he? Was he making this up or did he really knew about all of this? If he knew then why did he stood in the side-lines watching her destroy someone's life? Maybe ignorance ran in their blood. I couldn't believe in him and his words. How could he have been so cruel? Years of misery could have been avoided if only he would have stopped Serena. He had played a role in my demise just as everyone else has done. A silent tear rolled down my cheek. I could feel my heart breaking over the knowledge that he could have stopped it but he didn't. Years of a broken heart and he had played a part in it. Ignorance to my pain by him and Chyna both had cost me everything. Costed me my life, my child, my love, all I had ever had and what had he done. Let it happen. I could feel the love inside of me turn into hatred with every passing second.
"So you want to say that you watched as your girlfriend played the role of homewrecker in her own sister's married life? I never knew I raised you with such manners. You are my son but I'm ashamed to call you one right now," I could feel the hurt deep in her voice. She was hurt but I was hurt more than her. I had confided in him with my deepest secrets and it ripped me apart with the knowledge that he had let it happen. He had let me break. EH had let it all happen.
"Mom-," Nathaniel was faced with fury in his mother's eyes.
"Don't you dare anything else!" She snapped. "Look at Serilda. Do you see her right there?" Everyone's eyes turns to me and I wasn't ashamed to have them see me crying suffering in an agony. "It is all thanks to you and your fiancée she has nothing but a broken heart and pain in her eyes. You have done this to her knowingly. I had heard such hatred spew out for her earlier ever since you both got engaged that I had a picture of this vicious and ugly woman inside of me but sadly that wasn't the case. She had never been like that but everyone had made her look like this. The only ugly and vicious one right here is Serena and you. I think you both deserve each other but let me tell you one thing I'm not going to be a part of this wedding anymore because you are no longer the person, I had thought you to be and neither your wife to be," Ciara's voice filled with disappointment and anger. She didn't wait to hear what Nathaniel had to say or even Chyna. She just started walking out of there.
"I love her, mom and though what has happened wasn't right but we are no longer the same people were then," his words put a halt to his mothers' step. "You might not like the choices I have made in life but I can't back down from them just because someone isn't happy with what I do. It's not possible to make everyone happy right?" he asks her.
"So I'm just going to do what makes me happy and this wedding does make me happy. What has happened has happened. I can't change the past. The mistakes I have made can't be turned back. Nothing can change what I had done or what she has done but I can make way for a better future and that's what I'm going to do," his eyes turned to me and I felt like his words held a deeper meaning then they should have. With his eyes filled with guilt and remorse, he walked towards me. In that moment I felt nothing for him but hatred. How could he have done this to me even if he didn't damn know me, how could he have let this happen to anyone?
"I'm sorry for what I let happened and what she did to you but I can't change a damn thing. I wish I could have but it isn't possible. You can blame me and her for this all you want but I would blame you too for what happened because you let it happen. You didn't stop it, you didn't leave so you let it happen to you too. It's a bitter-," I slapped him cutting him off. His words stung. How dare he say I was to be blamed when he had been the one who was the one who had ruined my life. They all had done this to me. I felt things for him inside of me. I felt this desire for him and what had he done crushed it all with those words. I hated him. He wasn't the man I had thought him to be. He was just like her, Erik and Chyna. They were all alike. All wanted nothing but to hurt me.
"You are just like them. I wish I had the choice of death because at least then I wouldn't have to see ugly colours of yours," I said to him seething. "Your mother said right. You deserve her and I hope to god you regret being married to her for the rest of your life everyday," the bitter words spoken out with venom were the words I said to him in front of everyone with tears rolling down my cheeks.
"I will pray to god that you suffer everyday like I had till the day you are married to her," It hurt so deeply that it was hard for me to even breathe. I felt like an illusion of him has broken in front of me. I had thought that it would have been him who would have hated me knowing the truth but the table had turned. Now it was me who hated him.
"I can't do this anymore. Not any longer. None of you deserve me. None of you do," I break down crying and I couldn't stop. "You all are pathetic. You all are!" I screamed out. "You all did this to me! I'm a victim of your ignorance and hatred. You are all responsible for what had happened to me. You all are!" They all were culprits to my agony and sufferings all along. I couldn't look at those faces anymore so I ran. I ran with tears streaming down my face and my feet pushing forward to run far away from all of them. It was hard to even think that Nathaniel always knew that my sister was destroying someone's life. I burned in the agony of betrayal like I had never before. Why? Why did it hurt so damn much?
Because you love him the realization of putting a halt to my steps.
I loved Nathaniel and that is why it hurt too damn much. Everything hurt inside of me. I loved Aaron but I loved Nathaniel too. I have heard about this but had never realised I would be the one going through it. I was in love with them both. Aaron had been mine. I knew he was mine but Nathaniel he wasn't mine. He was my sister's and unfortunately, he was hers. I could see love in his eyes for me but he was going to marry her. He had betrayed me but Aaron would have never done this all because he loved me more than enough.
"Serilda," I heard my name being called. I turned around and ever since stopping it was the first time, I looked at my surroundings. I was at the beach, close to the ocean with my heels digging in the sand. My feet ached but it was nothing compared to the pain I felt inside of me from my broken heart. I had thought may I would have been prone to heart break and suffering but this another kind of pain I suffered from.
"Serilda," again I heard my name and looked up to find Chyna running towards me.
"I have been worried about you," she speaks as soon as her steps come to a halt. Her heels were in her hands as she caught her breath. "You ran away from there and had me startled. I was scared for you when you spoke those words and ran away. I can understa-,"
"I can't keep our promise, Chyna. I can't be with your brother!" I cut her off as I spoke the truth. Nathaniel and I couldn't be together because he would always be Serena's. He wouldn't be mine like Aaron was. He would be just another Erik. I ha tried to love him for the sake of saving our marriage but I had been burned all because he was her's. He always choose her and so would Nathaniel. He would be nothing but another Erik. Nathaniel could never be mine not until he and his heart is with her. I don't have it in me to become anyone's second anymore. I just wasn't to be someone's first and for at least Aaron I would be his first. All I want is to be someone's first not to ever be anyone's second anymore. Never again.
Fingers crossed.
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