Sign
A/n: caution the chapter is quite long.
I walked into my majestic suite whose glamour and décor no longer amused and fascinated me. What had just happened down at the hotel reception was crushing my heart. Tears were rolling down my eyes and I couldn't stop them. To be honest I didn't want them to stop. If this pain was required to help me be true to myself then I was ready to embrace it and face it. I had had enough of this drama.
I guess Antoine was finally right. I did have a way of inviting this hideous drama into my life, over and over again. I was probably attracted to it. Probably, I would not have reached this peak of success in my life if I hadn't experienced this drama. Probably, if Antoine hadn't slammed the door on my face years ago, I wouldn't have realised any of this today. I would have probably not realised Antoine's importance in my life.
I know I have lost plenty of chances to get back together with Antoine. By now I think it's quite evident that we are not meant to be. But... what if this encounter, I had with him, was a sign for the impossible dream, that I have been having since I was 16, to come true? What if Antoine's stay at the very same hotel as me was not a coincidence? What if it was a sign for a better, brighter and happier tomorrow, for both of us?
Should I let this chance go by not searching for his room number or should I take the risk, yet again, and tell him what I truly feel?
I think the latter sounded like a better plan because I will manage to live with the pain of the rejection but I just can't live with more regret. I will not be able to live with regret of not trying.
As tears flowed down my eyes, the only thing that filled my mind were the precious memories of the two of us together before things got so bitter between us.
The late night walks in Madrid, under the star lit sky, are still experiences that I cherish. The two of us became closer than family because of these walks. We realised things about each other that no one could have ever figured out. Those walks made Antoine open up and come out of his shell. He helped me solve my problems and I helped him solve his. It was on one of these walks that Antoine told me that he was selected to play for Real Sociedad team. He hadn't told anyone about it because he wanted me to be the first to know. These walks, that we shared, made me realise my dependence on Antoine and his dependence on me. That was when I first realized that I had feelings for him.
Those walks were our way of running away from the world together. It was our way of assuring each other that we would always be together. It was our little secret.
No one knows this, but I always carry a picture of Antoine and me as kids in my purse. Both of us were in first grade and we were standing under a mistletoe, looking into each other's eyes. Antoine was were a red sweater with rudolph's face on it. I had gifted it to him for Christmas. I was also wearing a green sweater with Santa's face on it, which was gifted to me by Antoine. I remember how we immediately ripped of the gift wrap of our presents that we got from each other that day. We both had worn the sweaters almost instantaneously. We were showing each other how we looked and that's when my dad found it appropriate to click our picture.
None of realised that we were standing under the mistletoe till Maud shouted out the fact. I remember blushing and seeing Antoine blush as well. I didn't know whether to follow the traditions and kiss him or not. But before I could come up with any concrete solution, Antoine divided in and kiss me on my lips. He was aiming on the cheeks but I turned my face so... that was my first kiss.
This picture always reminded me of a simpler time when life wasn't as complicated as it was presently. Whenever I felt lost, I would look at it and calm myself. Today was no different. I took the picture out and just seeing it got more tears in my eyes. I missed him very much and I probably needed him more than he needed me.
As I continued crying, I heard a vigorous knock on my door. I wiped my tears and opened it to see the Beaumont family outside. They looked a little flustered but I didn't care about their issues because I had a lot on my plate anyways.
Justin pushed me aside and entered the room with a look of worry on his face. Mary walked in a hugged me tightly. I shut the door and before I could turn around, Justin broke the awful silence that surrounded us-" We need to tell you someth.... Wait, were you crying?"
I didn't know how or what to reply. The only answer I could offer him were more tears.
"Oh no! You found out, didn't you?" Mary asked with a serious expression but a soft tone.
I realised that they must have bumped into Antoine and wanted to inform me about it. Hence, I nodded my head.
"My poor girl! We wanted to tell you as soon as we found out. We just didn't know how to tell you. We are so sorry. We couldn't believe our eyes when we saw him. I mean how could he do something like this to you. You deserve much better." Mary continued.
"I know but what to do, I love him and hence, I am ready to forgive him and dump this issue in the past and move forward."
"You can't forgive him for what he did. Where is that 'self respect' of yours that you keep talking about? You can't forgive Alex for what he did." Justin shouted with anger.
"Firstly, I am talking about Antoine, not Alex. The things that have happened in the past two years are actually my fault and not his. Second why would I have to forgive Alex he has not committed any mistakes."
"Woah... hold your horses the two of you. Veronica why are you talking about Antoine all of a sudden? Did he call you? Why didn't you say anything when we spoke on the phone?" Mary asked cutting me off.
"That's an odd question. Why would he call me? He is staying at this hotel with the French national team. I just bumped into him down at the lobby. I thought that was what you both were trying to warn me about. Clearly it wasn't. So what's going on and what does Alex have to do with it?"
Before they could say anything, someone else knocked the door. Mary opened it to reveal two men, both of whom I recognised- my fiance and Paul Pogba. I could understand why Alex was standing outside my room but I was quite confused about Paul.
"Mrs. Beaumont! What a pleasure to see you. Its been quite long since we last spoke. How are you?" Alex asked with a jolly tone. Alex had never been so jolly in all the time that I have known him. So this version of him was quite a surprise to most of us in the room.
"I was fine until you came along." Mary spoke harshly to Alex.
I was quite surprised by most of the things happening in the room. First, there was that weird conversation that I had with Justin and Mary, then Paul Pogba was standing at the door along with my not so important fiance, followed by Alex's jolly mood and now Mary's harsh response. I looked at Alex, who also had no clue, and then at Justin, who simply supported Mary's response by saying bluntly-"You sure have balls to turn up all jolly in front of her door step after everything you have done. She trusted you. We trusted you."
Meanwhile, I realised, Paul was standing at the door completely judging every single one of us in the room. I couldn't blame him. My family was behaving rudely with my fiance, my face had tear stains all over it and also, we can't forget the fact that my room was in a mess already with chocolate wrappers all over the place and the part of the photograph, showing Antoine's face, peeking out from the corner of a small diary. To control the situation from getting any worse, I quickly went up to the door and greeted Paul.
"Hi, sorry for this drama. If you're lost or something... you can take our help. I am not as crazy as them " I said laughing awkwardly pointing at the three who had now entered into a glaring contest.
Mary shot me one of her death glares. She was a huge fan of Paul. I simply ignored her and continued smiling at Paul, waiting for his response. Paul smiled and said politely-"No, I didn't get lost. I was actually searching for you specifically. Don't tell Grizou that I said this but, your voice is sweeter than what he described it to be and if I must say, you are 100000 times more beautiful than your picture."
I blushed listening to this. Despite of the things that happened between the two of us, Antoine still spoke about me to his teammate. He called me sweet and beautiful and also showed them my picture. I don't know whether the picture he showed was good or bad but whatever it was, he still showed them how I looked. I took this as a sign from God. Probably, I should find him. I can ask Paul for Antoine's room number so that I can talk to Antoine. But suddenly my doubtful mind thought- what if he spoke about you to them before you said no to his proposal?
Hence, I thought it would be wise to wait for more than one signs, just for added safety. Plus, I also wanted to know why Paul was searching for me specifically.
"Thank you for the compliment. Why don't you come in and have a seat in my 'not so neat' room?"
"Sure, why not! I have a feeling we are going to have a long and emotional conversation on your end. Plus, I still have some time before I have to babysit Antoine's daughter. Did he tell you he named his daughter after you?"
What? Antoine named his daughter after me? I was shocked and happy. Pure happiness- that's all that filled my heart. I started blushing even more. Definitely a sign.
I was about to ask him Antoine's room number when Paul said, taking a seat on the sofa across the bed-"He really misses you, you know. I think he is in love with you. He came to France, last week, to meet you, when that article on you came out in the news paper. But you had already shifted to England by then and your sister, I think, told him not to contact you as you were already engaged to get married. Then, I think, your brother in law had sent your address in England to him. He had visited your place, I think, yesterday, before catching a flight here back to paris, and he even rang the doorbell... but you weren't there. He left a message with your fiance, Alex, but of course given the fact that you blocked his number today morning, you mustn't have received the message."
I was literally speechless listening to Paul's words. I have never, in my life, resented people more than the way I felt today for my own family and Alex. For the love of God, I never hated Antoine so much even after he spread those hideous rumours about me in high school or when he kissed Angelina on prom night or when he got Crimsyn pregnant. Forget that, I haven't even hated Crimsyn as much for putting up with Antoine's revenge on me, even when she knew how I felt about him. I wanted to be alone and away from these people. I wanted to have nothing to do with them. I have nothing to tell them. I simply looked at all three of them with disgust and offered them my silence. They, of course, had no explanation for what they had done and naturally, none of them had the courage to make eye contact with me.
"Well then... I think I'll leave now. I have made things awkward enough for all of you. It was nice meeting you all. Bye then. Sorry for the inconvenience." Paul said. He left as rapidly as he came slamming the door behind him. I didn't even get Antoine’s room number but at this moment, I wasn't even bothered about it because I had to deal with these traitors.
"You guys lied and choose to withhold information from me. I mean who on earth has given you this authority? I know I haven't." I shouted.
"We were just trying to protect you." Mary said softly with a shaky voice.
"PROTECT ME? Protect me from WHAT? From this? The fact that I can't trust my own family?"
"Antoine has hurt you previously also. We didn't want history to..." Alex said shuffling his feet clearly showing how uncomfortable he was.
"You don't even dare speak a word, Alex. You son of a... I don't even want to curse you because you're not even worth cursing, forget about talking. You lied to me that you were in France since last week when you were actually in England, at home."
"I was going to tell you that my work..."
"That your work got over before you expected? You know, it's not the first time that I'm hearing this excuse. I too run a company. I know all about excuses. If you didn't want to accompany me to Rome, you could have just told me. I would have understood."
"It's not like that..."
"Ohh... it's worse than that. You were enjoying with your 'mistress' weren't you?" Justin snapped.
"What rubbish! I don't have any sort of 'mistress' in my life. I have only one woman in my life and that's Veronica."
"Bullshit! So, your suggesting that the woman you kissed, under my house, was Veronica and not someone else?" Mary charged Alex.
Alex remained silent for sometime. All this was a little too much to process for me. First, I have a family that withholds information from me about someone I truly love and now, the person I'm about to marry, is cheating on me with God knows whom. The crowd kept bickering at each other till the point that I couldn't take their nonsense anymore.
I just bursted out and said-" GET. OUT. NOW!!!"
The two, who knew me better, wisely didn't argue with me and simply left the room. But Alex of course had to contradict my wish. He came close to me but still stayed at arms distance because he knew I would have fed him to the dogs if he came anymore closer.
"You need to listen to me... I am not cheating on you with anyone. I love you"
"Yeah... right. Save these lies for someone else."
"But I'm not lying"
"Every word that escapes from your mouth is a lie to me. It has been for quite sometime. If it wasn't for my current situation..."
"But the ones that escape from Antoine's mouth are like words from the bible, isn't it? Even when it's a lie?" He cut me off with his sharp words.
"What did you just say?" I said clenching my fist. I swear if another word escapes from his mouth I will punch him.
"Unbelievable... No matter how much he hurts you, you will still crawl back to that disgusting French insect." He spoke with an even louder voice than me.
"Your crossing your limits. Back off. Now."
"You never had a place for anyone, in your heart, apart from him. I was always your back up. You practically played me, used me and guess what, you are still using me for your own benefits because apparently you don't want to hurt him and your family. You lied to me for the last six years. You are even more disgusting than Antoine. You crave for the attention. You probably even planned this whole drama with that illiterate fellow and your illiterate family." He spoke and he got exactly what he deserved for saying this. I broke his nose. And boy it felt good!
I didn't even bother looking at him. I held him by his collar and I dragged him out of my room( it was only possible because he was still dazed in shock and pain). I have never even killed a fly, and here I was, dragging this 6ft guy out of my room. I slammed the door on his face and believe me, I have never felt more relieved. I was devoid of the burden that I felt lately but not of the pain. It just multiplied due to the abscense of my burden. I felt so helpless all of a sudden that I needed some sort sedative to stop this misery. Hence, for the first time in my life, I went to the bar lounge, and asked the bar tender to give me the strongest drink that was available.
I drank it in one gulp. It was horrible. I could understand the reason why alcohol is considered toxic for the human body but on the other hand I could also see why people got addicted to it. Just one glass had helped me forget about a small part of my pain. I thought maybe one more glass would help me get rid of some more pain.
And just like that, I ended up drinking so many glasses that I couldn't even recognise my own hands. I felt disgusted at myself. I felt like a canon of anger ready to erupt anytime. And strangely, all this made me so sad that I couldn't help but burst into tears.
I went back to my floor, somehow. But I was so drunk that I knocked on a random door, thinking it was my room and hoping that Mary or someone was in my room to comfort me. Well, to be precise, I banged on the door, at 1 am in the night. The door opened with a blue eyed, blondish man, in a bathrobe, walking out, scratching his eyes.
I think I happened to encounter the third and final sign because the man was beyond surprised to see me. The only thing I could register was his familiar, french accented voice, which I think said-"Ronnie! It's the middle of the night... what are you... Oh shit your drunk!"