"Enzo," I called faintly, but he was too engrossed in his affairs to listen.
Something in me cracked like glass under pressure. My palms trembled.
The moan of the lady made it increasingly unbearable for me to continue. I found myself fighting through. I can't die? No! I won't.
"Enzo," I called out again in grief, wrapping my trembling arms over my chest, my teary eyes fixed on him. Just maybe, he would look.
But he never looked in my direction. The only sound heard was the slapping of flesh and the impact of his harsh thrusts. My heart burned with greater agony.
I slowly dragged my legs down the passageway, my mind filled with painful memories of my life. I had thought Enzo loved me. I had thought he would sacrifice for me just as I had sacrificed for him.
But no, I was dying. Freaking dying, but he never looked in my direction. He never cared. Tears streamed even more.
I slumped to the floor, my blurred vision moving to the stairs stretched out before me. I pinned my nails deep into the tiled floor like it owed me something. Pain shot through my fingers against the hard surface.
More tears burned at the corners of my eyes, breaking through the edges of my heart.
Slowly, I pulled forward, my arms pinned on the rails of the stairs as I kept pushing myself down the staircase.
One step, then the next one, and suddenly, my legs lost their grip over the slippery tile. My arms trailed off the rails, and then, it happened, my body plummeted down the stairs with a hot, painful roar that tore through my skin.
A loud gasp escaped my lips, echoing through the entire room.
My entire body reeled from the impact, but my heart was set on the words I held onto.
"I was never going to die. At least not now. Not today." I kept muttering those words to myself, pushing my weakened body toward the kitchen, despite its trembling.
Soon I was there. By now, my heart was almost at a stop.
I reached for the pavilion, drew out my bag, and it landed with a sharp sound on the floor.
Taking out the pill, I didn't know what happened thereafter, but the last thing I remembered was my arms grabbing the bottle firmly before everything went blank.
My heart stopped. Still, I lay there on the floor, tears synced to my cheeks like a second layer, my eyes slowly closing into peaceful darkness.
*****
Few hours later
I didn't know how, but I found myself on the floor. I tried to stand up, but my entire body hurts badly, and the hotness of my knees only made me frown in agony.
I found my arms trailed through my skin, slowly pulling myself upward with a loud, painful groan.
My entire skin was bruised, and my body sore. My eyes scanned the floor, and there laid scattered was my bag and the things inside it.
I slowly pulled down again, packing up my things, and glancing at the screen, it was freaking past six p.m.
My heart skipped. Enzo!
I was about to put the pot on the cooker when everything came flooding back. My arms stuck to the cold steel handle of the pot.
Tears streamed down my cheeks. I wasn't going to let him get to me that way. I found myself hurrying out of the kitchen, despite the hurt that still burned in my entire body.
Moving with that agony in my heart toward the living room, the noise still coming from that room only made me more broken.
But I sniffed, my arms rubbing on my face as I moved into the room.
The lady now on top of him, her arms dug into his chest, his eyes closed shut, lips moving in pleasure. Her whimpers filled my heart.
Would she stop? No.
Even after I entered the room, she continued, still thrusting harder, grinding her waist on his hardened cock.
I swallowed hard, my entire body trembling, my words glued to my throat.
"Enzo!" I shouted out.
And only then did he open his eyes, meeting my gaze. He whimpered.
The lady cried out in loss as Enzo grabbed her waist, pushing her to the side. She landed softly on the fabrics.
A deafening groan followed. Without a word from him, I knew what that was. A signal I was intruding? Or I was disturbing?
I let the hot saliva in my guts slide down as I watched him slowly slide out of bed. A frown creasing his forehead as he leaned onto the lady and kissed her cheek.
"Babe, I will be right back," he whispered to her, and she groaned, turning in my direction with an unsheathed bitterness in her gaze.
Then, I got the picture. My heart panicked.
"Ella?" I gasped.
She hissed and turned away, her face full of judgment. My chest tightened. My breath hitched.
Enzo got out of bed and walked toward me. His eyes were cold, filled with hate and irritation.
I would have spoken, but he grabbed my wrist roughly and dragged me out of the room, down the hallway, and down the stairs to the living room.
"Enzo, stop! You're hurting me!" I cried, but he didn't listen.
We got to the living room. He forcefully let go of my arms, and I stumbled backward from the impact of the force, my legs barely pulling me onto my feet as I landed distractedly on the tiled floor.
Pain shot through my waist bone and my ankle. A creaking sound escaped my lips, tears forming in my eyes again.
I lifted my gaze toward him, but he surprisingly locked his gaze with mine, no atom of pity in his eyes. Confusion masked my entire features.
This couldn't be the same Enzo I married?
I sat up slowly and touched my ankle. My palm came away bloody. The sight snapped something inside me.
"Enzo, why?" I asked, looking him straight in the eyes. After everything I'd done for him, the years I secretly supported him, helped him recover, and stood by his side, sacrificing my own life for him, I deserved an answer.
"Why what?" he snapped. "Are you stupid? Didn't you see it yourself?"
My stomach twisted in knots.
"See what?" The words came out before I could stop them.
"That he doesn't love you and never did," a voice said from the stairs.
I looked up. It was Ella. Her eyes full of mockery. Or so I think.
I had thought I could trust her as a friend and a sister, that which I never had. But no. I was wrong.
I turned back to Enzo.
"Explain this. All of it. Why?" I asked.
"You heard her," Enzo sneered. "Stop acting like a child."
His words pierced me deep like a knife. But I held on, refusing to break, even when my heart screamed at me.
"So this is the surprise you have for me, right?" I questioned, my gaze drifting toward Ella, who was now standing next to Enzo, wrapped affectionately in his arms.
"Yes. She's a better version you can never be," he mocked, rolling his gaze at me from head to toe. "A commoner and a nobody from the slums."
His words struck yet again, this time deeper than ever, but I blinked, forcing myself to stay strong.
But then his mocking, darkened stare remained fixed on me, silently promising me that it was only the beginning of my nightmare.
Tears burned at the corners of my eyes as memories of my past flooded in. A past I never wanted to go back to. One that had haunted me for so long….