Louisa's p.o.v;
After Ace got out, I took him and headed home.
While we're in the car, I held his hand and leaned on his shoulder and said, "Finally, everything's over. We're together now. Do you know how happy I am to be with you again? I got scared and lost my stand after hearing your arrest. Now, it feels like I got myself back on track since you're here with me."
"How did you bring me out?"
"Does that matter now? Now that you came outside, don't think about those things. Let's forget what happened and think about what we should do next…" said while tracing his hand in a seductive way.
He snapped my hand and asked, "Tell me what did you do to bring me out?"
"Why do you want to know?
"I want to know."
He asked the driver to stop the car and got out of it. I stepped out after him and looked at him who was walking over the bridge. I asked the driver to leave and walked to Ace.
I stood in front of him and said, "I asked Paulo to help me to get you out of that place."
"What did you just say? Did you ask for help from him? Did you forget what he did to you in the past? He drugged you and tried to rape you. He shot Mateo and Edgar. How can you ask for help from that guy? Did you lose your mind? Hold on, how did you accept to help you back? What did you do?" He grabbed my arm and asked, "What did you do in return? Tell me, what did you do? Did you sleep with him?"
I slapped him right across his face and grabbed his collar and asked, "How can you ask me something like that? Did you think of me that low? Do you think I'll just sleep with anyone to get what I want? Wow! I can't believe those words came out of your mouth. You just broke my heart." I wiped my tears and said while holding his cheek, "I'm sorry for the slap. Did it hurt?"
When he snapped my hand off his face, I asked, "What happened? I know that you don't talk to me like that. Is something bothering you?"
"Louisa, let's stop whatever is between us."
"Wh-What do you mean by that?"
"I don't want to be with a girl who sleeps with anyone to get her work done." And walked away from me.
After hearing those words out his mouth, my mind went blank and didn't know how to make him believe that I didn't do it. He was walking before me but I couldn't stop him. When I looked to my right, I saw water flowing under the bridge.
Why am I so unlucky? Why is everyone leaving me? Am I that bad? Don't I deserve love in my life? Is it wrong to long for love? Do I really belong here, amongst these strangers who don’t really know me and yet care about me enough to want to help me out? Why do they always leave me alone? And why can’t I have a happy ending? Why does life hate me so much? How was I born this way?
I stepped up on the bridge and thought, 'If no one wants me, then why am I still livin' in here?'
I jumped from the bridge and fell into the flowing water. As soon as I jumped into the water, I got submerged into the water. Since I never learned how to swim, I started going to the bottom of the river. As I was going down, I felt suffocated and couldn't see properly what's in front of me. Everything looked like a blur through my tears, but I was in no state to worry about that right now. There was nothing but the open water in sight now. My heads were all spinning and my vision became blurry and closed my eyes since I couldn't hold them open.
After a while,
I heard someone shouting my name again and again while I felt something pressed on my chest repeatedly. Suddenly, the water from the stomach came upward which made me barf out all the water on the ground beside me.
After a few minutes my eyesight returned to normal enough for me to take stock of my surroundings. It took me a minute to recognize who was talking to me. I saw the person who was calling out my name turned out to be Ace. He looked worried and his eyes filled with tears. Once I tried to sit up, he carried me in his arms and made me sit on a bench nearby and tried to wrap a cloth around me. I denied it and stood up to walk away from him.
He held my hand and asked, "Why did you do that? Why did you jump from the bridge? Did you go insane? Why did you plan to leave me forever? Do you think I can survive without you?"
I turned and looked at him, "Aren't you the one who asked me to leave?"
He hugged me tightly and said, "I'm sorry. I never meant any of those words. I did it only because I don't want to see you in pain anymore. Being with me or loving me only brings you pain."
"I don't mind that. It's you that matters to me." I said while being in embrace.
He broke the hug and said, "We never meant to meet in the first place. I shouldn't have put that stone in your coat that day. I never should have kidnapped you. I never should have liked you. I never should have fallen in love with you, Louisa."
"Ace?"
He kept his finger on my lips and said, "No one accepts our relationship."
"Why do you care about others? In a relationship, only the people who's in love should decide. Not others. Please don't do this."
I hugged him and said, "Don't do this to me, Ace. Please don't do this."
He broke the hug and gave a kiss on my lips and when he parted, he said, "Let's break up, Louisa." And left.
AFTER A WEEK,
At my house,
I ate my breakfast from take away. While I was eating, I looked at the messy house. It's been like this for a week now. There were dishes in the sink and papers on the couch. Some of which are open but don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. There were clothes everywhere and a dirty plate with some rice in it in front of me at the dining table where I was eating my breakfast. It looked like there was no sign of life here. It seemed empty and abandoned. After finishing my meal, I ignored it and went back to my sleep.
Someone knocked on my door, I ignored it and continued to sleep. The knocks stopped at some point but this time, it didn't.
I got up from my bed and walked to the door to open it. When I opened the door, I saw Raphael standing in front of my house.
When I tried to close the door, he stopped it by placing his leg between the spaces and asked, "How long are you going to hide here?"
I let go of the door and walked inside the house.
He entered the house while asking, "It looks like you're living in a dump. When are you going to clean this place or shall I get someone to clean this place?"
"I don't want anyone to step inside this house."
He took the empty booze bottle and asked, "When did you start drinking these things? There's so much lying in here. Are you planning to die out of drinking?"
"I regret opening the door now."
I walked to my room and dropped on the bed and said, "Leave before I say."
He took a seat and asked, "When are you going to join the job again?"
"For your information, I'm not on vacation or on medical leave to join again, i quitted."
"I thought you were the smartest one. I didn't expect you to be like this. Resigning the job just because you got rejected in your relationship. This is not you at all."
"Why are you here?"
"To get you out this garbage."
"Then you should leave because I'm not coming anywhere."
I let out a yawn and crawled in the bed to sleep.
When I woke up after three hours of sleep, he wasn't around. I walked out of the room and saw Raphael in the living room cleaning the messy place.
"What are you still doing here?" I asked him.
He picked up every bottle off the floor while saying, "Couldn't leave after seeing a messy place like this. One of my bad habits, I guess."
"Going to get messy anyways."
When I opened the refrigerator, I saw fruits and vegetables instead of instant foods.
Raphael, "I went shopping too."
I closed the refrigerator and asked, "Where's my food?"
"Those are not foods. That's junk. You'll get sick if you keep on eating it."
I took milk out of the refrigerator and heated it. While it was boiling, I searched for some biscuits.
Raphael placed the cookies on the table and asked, "When did you eat a proper meal last time?"
"Don't act like you care for me."
"I'm not acting. I really do care for you. Otherwise why would I visit now and then in between my work."
"Yeah, by manipulating Ace's mind to break up with me. I don't know why I'm still talking to you even after what you did to me."
"You're talking like I hypnotised him. All I did was to tell him what happens if he's still in a relationship with you. He gave it a thought and decided by himself. Don't talk like I forced him to do it."
He's right about it. Ace wasn't like someone who decides something after hearing it from a person.
"Stop talking about it. I'm trying to forget but you keep on showing up at my house and making me remember it again and again. When will you stop showing at my house?"
"Since he's not in your life anymore, you can think about other things like rejoining the job and hanging out with us and chasing after the criminals like how you did before. We miss Louisa."
"The Louisa you're talking about died a week ago."
Raphael held my hand and asked, "It hurts to see you like this."
After seeing him holding my hand, I asked, "What am I to you?"
"What?"
"The relationship between us. What is it? Is it a friendship or more than that?"
He frowned before replying. He said, "We've been friends for a long time. You're important to me in a way that's... complicated but also easy to explain. I feel things that I couldn't put into words, even if they're not necessarily romantic feelings. So yes, I guess, at least in some ways, I'm something of a friend who could be there for you whenever you need me."
"I heard those before but with different words. Now, I doubt he remembers me."
"Are you talking about Bernardo, your friend from college?"
"Yeah, I was talking about him. Moreover, he's an attorney. We only end up in fights because of our jobs. It's not new for me. I don't get someone to love me that easily. It's always been like that. To make my parents look at me, I should overcome a do or die situation. To make the person who I love to make him love me back, I should keep my life to the death. To make my friend stay, I should sacrifice my love. Now, I'm just tired of holding everyone together. So I let it go. I let fate decide my life. I let destiny shape the direction of my life, whether it was for better or worse. It's been said that we are not born with our lives predetermined in a way, but as the fates will. We live and die by their hand. But I have always believed that we are given choices to make. And, this is the choice I made." And gave a smile at him.