The Last Night

The weather remained freezing, thunder rumbling angry as lightning skipped through the clouds. She finally came across somewhere familiar, a small cottage home at the outer edge of the suburbs.

Her clothes were torn, ragged, and drenched. Her lower lip bore a rough bleeding cut from the hit on the iron gate, and her heart now had a hole she doubted would ever heal as sounds of Emila's moans and flashes of Carl in bed with her replayed in her mind.

She rammed heavily on the door. "Is anyone home? Aunt Geraldine? Can you open the door?" she said peeping through a round hole at the top.

The lights flashed on as she saw an old feet approach.

The door came ajar slowly, but Emily knew by now she might not be welcome here.

Her aunt watched her with a twist on her face, she had taken her and her siblings under her very own care after their mother had passed away. She looked utterly embarrassed, shame clinging to her eyebrows.

Beside her, her cousin Belin, had a soft, large towel on his shoulder, and he looked at her like she was dirt on the doorstep.

"You have some guts you know, to think I would bring you in here after your scene out there with Carl," she snapped sharply.

"Auntie! It's not true! Emila set me up, you should know. I can't steal Carl's money, I swear, he took her over me. I'm pregnant, please help me."

"You have a baby?" her cousin laughed dryly and it reeked of mockery.

He moved towards her like he didn't need permission to invade her space then he scanned her carefully, clearly irritated with each look.

"So you finally came back, Emily. You thought it all ended in a rich marriage, but here you are with us again. Only filthier. Now I see why Carl saw nothing in you. You were always the weight, the burden he carried. Only five years and you're already divorced. I knew you could never last in anything and you came back a thief"

"I didn't do anything, Belin, Aunt Geraldine, come on! You know Emila always hated me!" she cried out softly to them.

But he looked at her again, his eyes filled with more disgust than ever before

"Shut it!" her auntie screamed. Her voice rang through the road and hall ahead. She was loud enough to make the candle at the opposite edge flicker.

"Oh please! We both know Emila loved Carl for years more than you did. She saved him from the fire incident that almost claimed his life, but you shoved her aside, claimed what she did, and rushed into marrying Carl out of your selfishness while she suffered every day from the lack of his love. You never even returned home. The moment you walked into that mansion, you forgot your own home. Look at where I live Emily? A supposed mother-in-law to a billionaire! An abomination! You failed us!"

"You would never understand, Auntie. Emila stole my glory. I was the one who saved Carl, and Carl never loved me for five years in that cage of a marriage. I stayed with him, but I lived in horror. If I had a dad, maybe he would understand better," she said calmly, feeling her heart crack slowly.

"Your father is insignificant in this house. He abandoned you at birth, left you both to your mom and me, and we brought you up all alone. But you are a disappointment, a liar just like him, an ingrate, a disgrace! and now, I see why your life sucks so much," Aunt Geraldine hissed. Emily felt the hole in her heart deepen even more.

"Get me the jug on the table, Belin dear" she said to her cousin and he obeyed with a smirk

He arrived with a heavy glass jug, she recognized.

"Look at me, Emily," she called out to her and emptied the contents on her face. She shivered at the coldness, opening her eyes to a dripping head and hair. Her stolen breath returned slowly, with the ice-cold.

She panted frustratedly, as water splashed all over her clothes and around her legs, drenching her even more.

"Leave this house and never come back," my aunt said, her tone was so sharp, it pierced through Emily's soul mercilessly and left a sore, she knew would never heal.

"You can't find a worthy place. You're filth. Would have been better for your mother and easier for me if you had died at childbirth or in the fire you claim you wanted to save him from instead.' Don't ever come back here again, if you value your life"

The door shut so hard in my face that I felt some of my wet hair fly back with the force. She did the bolt loud and final, and she knew it was the thing about her childhood and her past life that had finally been destroyed.

Emila had stolen everything from her like she always wanted.

She sank into the muddy, wet ground, shivering endlessly with goosebumps that just wouldn't stop recurring.

She was twenty-five, pregnant, homeless, divorced, and on the black list of one of the most powerful families in the country as a looter.

"Miss Emily?"

A weak old voice arrived from just in front of me, near one of the houses just opposite ours. Just when she thought all hope was lost.

It was Neighbor Bertha. She was old, a woman in her early seventies, covered in grey hair, and she had been the only person who looked at Emily kindly and with a smile after her mother passed away unexpectedly.

She made it over in a while, struggling with her stick in each step as she pulled a thick round, old blanket around her cold shoulders. Tears ran down her old wrinkled cheeks.

"Oh, my lovely I saw it all... I heard everything."

"Ma Bertha, I'm stuck. I don't have a place to go" Emily shook feverishly from the excess cold.

"Look at me, dearie," she said, her voice lowering urgently as she bent a little, feeble and heavy, supporting herself with the walking stick. Then, an old envelope sealed with red candle wax dropped to the floor.

Ma Bertha shook even as she held her stick, too weak to stand erect or even bend.

"Take this my apple pie, it was from your mother before she passed away. She had given me this to give to you. She died of haemorrhage from childbirth, and she wanted you to have this before she died, especially in difficult moments like this... It contains a secret from your father, your inheritance as the first twin, and the house they made you both. But Emila has turned evil now. You must not let her know"

She picked up the envelope, shocked. Then she examined it a little, cleaning off dirt and a little water

"Go now, Emily," Bertha nudged suddenly, taking her hands in her hard, old-skinned palm. "Leave this place, for a place where you will be loved and valued. This place... It’s full of wicked souls. You will raise that baby there, and you will become the woman your mother knew you could be. I’ll be praying for you every single night, my sweet strong girl."

"Bertha you've been so kind to me. I don't want to leave you here. I can stay with you, I can take care of you," Emily begged between sobs, struggling mid-breath.

"I'm an old, my sweet child, I'm afraid I'll do quite well. But you? You need a better life in a better place." she muttered, glancing back at the house. One more time, a place she would now find it difficult to forgive.

"Just get going now, before it gets too late, my dear, don't ever worry about me. I want you to succeed." she smiled gently, her narrow old eyes hiding behind much skin.

She stood up, clutching the envelope tightly, like a rare treasure. She didn't even look back once again, to the place that raised her and had now shattered her like she was nothing.

"I'm going, Ma Bertha, I would never forget you, I promise, keep praying for me," she said, her voice was suddenly beginning to lose the edge of fear that followed situations like this. She could feel something hardening at the lower edges of her chest, something that would now carry me into a life where I could live or die, right next to the little life I nurtured and nourished and shielded on the inside.

"However, you must note one thing...' she added.

"Yes? Tell me Bertha"

"If you get to the city, you would be going, you must change your identity, you must never return here, this city, no matter what happens ever again. Because the woman you are going to become over there is a woman... whose flourish would last a lifetime in the right place"

Emily paused, she racked her bon rain her puzzle, her big toe curling in disappointment.

"Then how do I make them regret it? If I can't return here or see them again" she thought.

"Emily, you must never return to this city for the rest of your life, if it's in the hands of fate, they will come to you"

Emily nodded and wiped her tears with the little courage she had gathered. She wiped some dirt off the lower hem of her garment and straightened herself like a woman with a life and, hopefully, a brighter future ahead.

"Good. Be strong Emily. You must go now. Keep going till you find the city your heart accepts. Never return, never look back" she added firmly.

Emily spread her arms out wide, wider than she ever could, and wrapped the old woman in a hug. The biggest, warmest hug she'd ever given anyone in her whole life as warm tears trickled down her cold chin, landing on the old woman's shoulder. It took ages for her to let go, she never wanted to but things had to move forward

She turned into the dark, rainy night, stronger this time, the path in front of her stretched ahead, and she started walking along the railroad to a place she could stay. She'd didn't stay at the old woman's home because she could implicate her if she did. So, she looked and moved forward with a hope and no destination, and never for once did she ever look back, at least, not for now.