CHAPTER 03

What about success that ends up tasting tasteless in the mouth of a heart that has suffered so much? What about success when the heart does not know what it is to be loved? In the middle of the rain, as if the sky were crying with her in the same way, Paula got out of the car that she had been driving with so much work due to the pain in her chest until she arrived at her house, where her husband would surely be as if nothing had happened. 

With her hair soaked, she entered the house slamming the door of the car. You couldn't tell if she was angry or sad, sad to the point of wanting to die.

Entering the house, she realized that her husband was there, making dinner while humming a song. It was incredible, if she had not seen what she had seen a couple of hours ago she would surely have fallen for that beautiful image of her husband.

"Until you arrive, honey," he said, serving dinner.

She wasn't going to take it anymore.   

Paula was fed up, tired of being the ugly duckling of the family and of everyone, tired of just being the woman they enslaved, tired of being the woman everyone used at their convenience.

Annoyed and in pain, Paula threw one of the glasses that were in the dining room, making the noise fill the silence and joy of that man who had only deceived her.

Alexander soon left the kitchen without knowing what was happening. When he was finally outside, he realized that his wife was there. She looked different, completely different from the warm woman he always had by his side.

"Paula, what's wrong with you?" Alexander asked, being cheeky.

Paula, crying, feeling how her chest was burning, walked up to him and caring little, knowing that there was nothing more to lose when she had seen her stepsister's deception with her husband, she slapped him like she had never done before with a man.

"I hate you, I hate you with all the strength of my heart," she said.

Alexander, putting his hand to the bruised area, looked at her with such fury. No woman in his life had dared to hit him, much less his ugly wife would. Hatred was present in his eyes. No one would hit him again like she had.

"I know everything, I know everything... I know everything, Alexander ! You cheat on me with my own sister... I already know everything!” Paula shouted, raising her hand ready to hit him once again.

But Alexander, being more skilled than her, knew how to stop her by taking her wrist while making her walk backwards until she was pressed against the wall.

She was very wrong if she thought that he was going to deny it, that he was going to ask for forgiveness, that he would tell her that everything had been a mistake, that she should please forgive him because he was willing to be someone else but no, none of that happened as she had imagined.

In front of her tear-filled eyes, Alexander laughed at her, taking her by the wrists. The truth was that he was not sorry for anything, he was not sorry for having done what he did because a woman like the one he had at home had forced him to do it.

"Why, why did you do it?" She asked, full of pain.

Alexander laughed. "Haven't you ever seen yourself in a mirror? Those glasses, that hair always in a ponytail, those stupid bangs, those long skirts, those sweaters, don't you realize that you are a vapid woman, a woman who is worthless?”

By that moment Paula could already realize that the man was not sorry for what he had done.

"And for your information, I haven't done it just once, it hasn't just been your sister who has been with me, it has been many, many other women.”

Paula's heart was going to stop. That man was shouting in her face how little she was.

The pain began to penetrate Paula's entire body. She was tired, she was tired of being the ugly duckling, the stupid one of everyone.

“Let go of me! Now, you hurt me, Alexander!” she shouted, making him laugh.

Pain squeezed Paula's stomach and heart. Not being able to bear how much she wanted to scream out that pain, she put her hands to her mouth, drowning out the pain. She wanted to die, she wanted the earth to open beneath her feet.     

"You... you," Paula pointed out painfully. "You don't know who I am.”

Alexander laughed. "And who are you supposed to be? You're just stupid, the ugly duckling of the family. Come on, look in a mirror!” Alexander  tried to take her hand once more.

She walked away, crying.

"I hate you, I hate you so much, I hate you, Alexander !" Paula shouted for the last time, just before taking the keys to her car and running out of the house just as if her destination was clear even if it wasn't.

Having felt the greatest pain, having known everything her husband was thinking, all Paula could do was drive as fast as she could, forgetting that the road was wet, that the curves of that road could not be seen. What she wanted was to get to her stepmother's house and see her sister to complain about all the dirty things she had done.   

She kept crying with so much pain, she hit the steering wheel, the tears kept falling, all her eyes could see was the rain and the windshields desperately trying to clear the road she couldn't really see.

There were no lights ahead, the lights of the car itself were not enough to guide her along the path she should follow.

"I hate you... I hate you, Emma, ​​I hate you, Alexander !" She shouted, hitting the steering wheel.

And without her seeing it coming, without her thinking about it, just as she turned around, along with the rain and perhaps the tires that were useless for that wet pavement, they were not enough for her to avoid the next movement.

It was from one moment to the next that, trying to turn the steering wheel in a desperate movement because she had not seen the curve, the car that was carrying her ended up crashing in front of the hill in front of her.

Only screams were heard, and just before it hit the hill and finally went down the ravine, breaking through the fence, something else had happened. Something that Paula's eyes did not see and that could be the center of her downfall if she managed to get out of that accident alive.

The car, almost in pieces, having gone around the ravine twice, finally only pieces of it seemed to have remained.

The broken glass made a bed, a bed of pain in which Paula's almost lifeless body lay, with her face completely cut off, her hands, her feet, everything about her was a pool of blood. And she, she was losing her life.