Chapter Four: Twisted Confession

Deciding to be absent today, Taya had no desire to go to work. Last night was a long sleepless night Taya had to face. Alone. Putting away her phone, isolating herself in her room, thinking about the best way to end her engagement. Ella's suggestion was now an option along with the idea of just disappearing from the city like a criminal. In fact she was hesitant.

Not even her mother could jab her with annoying series of questions about her dinner with Lucas, last night. She was too consumed when she got home. Sophia usually didn't care whether her daughter was exhausted, she just like to be the family journalist but last night was different. Instead of gossiping, she let Taya lock herself inside her room, alone. As if she could read her daughter's sadness. A mother's instinct would never fail.

At the table, where everybody in the house was having breakfast, eventually, Taya was asked about the dinner. There were her mom, her dad, and herself around the table.

"Not bad." Was all coming out of Taya's mouth.

"Tell me you didn't ruin it!" Sophia insisted while she held Taya's hand. She knew her mother was mostly excited because her daughter's soon to be married to a wealthy man. It was a pride in the family.

Taya didn't tell a word since she was still hurt from the bitter reality she had to face.

"What's wrong with you?" Enough getting ignored by her daughter, Sophia shouted, she was just as impatient like usual.

"I am not in the mood to talk about anything at the moment. I am sick." Taya dropped her plate and left the table towards her room, slamming the door shut behind her.

She was thinking it was the time to call Lucas and poured into the idea Ella had given her even though it seemed crazy to her sanity.

"Nope!" She shook her head, thinking of why should she do that. He was the one who betrayed her and he should come to her and ask her a mercy which she would never give.

The conversation between Lucas and whoever the bitch was ingrained deep into her memory. What he said to the girl was like a thunder in a summer afternoon. The mixture of emotion disturbed Taya from the inside. Taya had been so adamant but what caused her being so indecisive was a massive strike that hit her not only mentally and emotionally also.

Ella's suggestion knocked her mind again and still Taya ignored. The fact was Lucas had only tried to call her trice after her abrupt departure from the restaurant, and not even coming to her home and checking up on herimmediately. Taya had come to final decision that she was not gonna call him or come to him and do as Ella told. Whatever it took. She would never.

Still feeling beyond exhausted, the blonde Taya curled under the sheet, it was good that the sheet held her instead of Lucas in the cold morning of fall season. A drop of tear rolled over her face. Her harsh breath was audible as it lulled herself into dozing off.

After about an hour, she wake up to a knock on the door. Pulling her heavy eyelids apart, Taya sat weakly on her messy bed. She planned to sit there for good two minutes or more before the knock woke her up completely.

"Yeah!" Her yeah sounded more like a hush. While walking up to the door, she felt a little bit dizzy because she saw the floor spin slowly. It was pretty much an energy-consuming situation that she had ever faced.

Once the door being pulled open, a sight of someone she had been wanting to slap was there.

"Good morning." His voice was masculine like always but in Taya's ears now it was not more than a rough wind which carried no oxygen, only pollution.

"We need to talk." He leaned against the doorframe of Taya's room and Taya without thinking twice tugged on his hand and pulled him inside, locking the door behind the man.

"Yeah, we need to talk. Firstly, I wanna confess that I cheat on you. I am the bad girl who doesn't deserve a man like you, secondly, I am not gonna marry you because I don't love you. I only want your money and all the wealthiness and the reputation your family carries but the more I lied to myself, the more I felt embarrassed so from now on, we are no longer engaged. Okay?!" The words were like flowing out of her mouth and Taya regretted nothing that Lucas might think she was insane. In Taya's vision, the one who was insane was Lucas.

Emotionally, Taya smacked Lucas chest with her bared-hands, pushing Lucas back, and pinned his broad body against the door. She gripped the collar's of Lucas' office shirt that smelt expensively familiar in her nose.

"I have no business with you anymore so leave me alone!" Taya never felt more damaged, more broken, more lost than right now. She even felt stupider and useless, indeed. If she could compare herself to wreckage, she was no more useful. Releasing Lucas who said nothing towards Taya, she turned the handle of the door and opened it.

"Get out!" She expelled in a low, husky whisper. Yet, Lucas was standing there, not moving a single inch.

"GET OUT!" This time Taya's voice was like thunder rumbling. Lucas eyes expressed no emotion as he walked away, leaving the numbed Taya behind the slammed close door.

"Taya!! Open the door!" Now her mother's voice interrupted as knocks were being rained against it. The worry within her voice was clearly audible.

"Open the door!" Sophia insisted while keeping to knock onto Taya's door. She had no idea what was happening between Taya and Lucas since Lucas just came and went away like a ghost, not even excusing himself to leave.

"What's wrong? Open the door. Did you guys fight?"

Inside her room, Taya sat on the end of her bed, hugging her folded legs in her arms, propped her chin on her knees. Her deathly blank stare was scary though, directed outside the window. A big hollow was wide inside her soul, as if sucking her from the inside.

"Taya! Open the door or I'll call your dad!" Classic threat in the family, that still worked even Taya was almost 30 years old already, now. Her father would definitely call her sooner or later since he just left home because of Sophia would tell him to call her. Before that happened, she rose up and strode to the door.

"Are you okay?" Sophia checked on her daughter the moment the door opened.

"Yes." Uttered Taya, idly.

"What happened between you and Lucas?" She rushed into Taya's room and stood before Taya. Obviously, Sophia was full of insistence to find out what actually happened.

"We just broke up." Explaining, Taya sat on her bed, facing her mother who gasped as if there were steroid stabbed deep inside her stomach.

"I can't believe it! Say again!" Sophia insisted in disbelief.

"Mom, I am not gonna marry a hypocrite. Regardless of how wealthy he is, he isn't worth me." Said Taya, wiping away the last teardrop off of her cheek.

"Can you elaborate? I don't understand?" Sophia crossed her arms across her chest, frowning deeply at her one and only daughter.

"Long story short, I am a free girl now. I can decide what is best for me afterwards. Maybe I will leave New York. Who knows." Taya shrugged as she turned to go to the bathroom. Getting physically cleaned was necessary since now she was gonna face a completely new world outside.

First, she would take a shower and then she would get dressed in the fanciest office attire she had. She would go to the office. Definitely not to work, because she was far too late. She had a deal with herself and so much to do today.

"You're talking like it is not a big deal." Sophia tailed Taya towards bathroom, digging more information from her daughter.

"Mom, I have explained. If Lucas, the son of a wealthiest CEO in New York could hurt me I could hurt him even worse." She laughed sarcastically before she closed the bathroom door.

"What did he actually do to you, Taya?" Sophia's question went unanswered.