03.

ERENDINA.

I was thirteen years old when my father brought a boy home. He had the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen and a gorgeous smile that looked too kind. Father told me he found him in the woods and his name was said to be Dominic.

I didn’t care for Dominic at first nor did I liked him. All I saw was a young boy with whom I had to share my father’s affection. However, despite my clear dislike for him; Dominic didn’t stop trying to get close to me. He’d offer to play with me even as I decline again and again, and he’d throw me a gentle smile everytime our paths crossed. Slowly, I started to open my heart to him. Perhaps sharing my father’s love with the boy wasn’t harmful after all.

Dominic was three years older than me but he never behaved so. With me, he was soft and overtime, we grew so close that I became so obsessed with him. My every waking thought was filled with him. All I breath in and out was Dominic and my obsession was turning into something else. It was turning into something more. Something I had never felt with anyone other than myself and I didn’t admit it until I was sixteen.

I was in love. In love with my brother. He had opened my heart in a way I didn’t think was possible and he had made me his before I could even catch myself.

It was unheard of. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with Dominic but I couldn’t help myself. The more time passed by, the more my feelings grew and I started to ponder if there was any wrong with it. He isn’t my blood. He was just a boy my father brought home—there was no wrong in falling in love with him. He made me that way after all. He gave me too much of his attention, too much of his time, too much of his tender gazes, and too much of his gentle smiles. I had a heart. He had to knew what he was doing. Or so I thought, because Dominic didn’t see me in that light.

I had waited. Day by day. Weeks after weeks. Month after the other. I waited for him to start something between us but nothing happened. Dominic didn’t feel the same way and I confirmed that when he got his first girlfriend at twenty.

That was the first time my heart had truly broken—seeing him with another girl. Seeing another girl touch him. Kiss him. Hold him. Doing all the things I could only dream of doing.

Then they broke up. And I thought perhaps it was my chance. I had grown into a woman so maybe he’d feel the same way about me this time.

Once again, I had fooled myself. Because Dominic got another girlfriend. A prettier one. He got totally obsessed that he started spending less time with me and I knew there was no longer lying to myself.

Dominic would never be mine. He’d never see me as something more than a sister. A younger sister.

I felt angered and cheated. He had stolen my heart and he couldn’t even take responsibility for it. I was left to deal with consequences of his actions and the only way I could cope was find him in another man. It was how that habit of mine started; I went to the whorehouse the first night Wendy, Dominic’s girlfriend spent at the palace. I stood before his door and heard them. I heard it all—her moans and his grunts. I heard everything they were doing—everything he was doing to her. Everything he would never do to me. Everything that only existed in my imaginations.

I lost my mind that night and I didn’t think about my next actions. I just wanted to forget about what I heard. So I went to the place you should never find someone like me. I took a man and I let him take me—I let him take my innocence with hopes that I’d finally forget about Dominic.

Only I didn’t.

Instead of losing my feelings, they only worsened. And I found myself returning to that place. To that man and pretending it was him. Pretending I was having everything I could only dream of.

But fantasies aren’t reality. In reality, I have nothing. Instead, I’m losing more and more of what I used to have because Dominic is getting married. To Wendy. He’d be taken from me. Completely.

•

“What are you doing here so late?” Dom asks, stepping out of the room fully and shutting the door behind him.

“I was just… I—“ what am I doing here? I don’t know. For a moment, I had thought of telling him everything. Letting him know of my secrets and how much I actually feel for him but now that I’m before the man, I can’t seem to bring myself to speak the words. Something tells me I’d regret it which is why I say, “I wanted to see you. We didn’t talk the entire day.”

He smiles and like always, my chest squeezes at the perfect display of white teeth and the dimple on the right cheek.

Goddess. Why does he keep doing this to me? Why does he have to be so beautiful? How does he have to hold so much control over me?

“I’ve been so busy with preparations for tomorrow. I’m sorry. Did you miss me?” He wriggles his right brow, entertainment shining in his eyes and I scoff. “You wish.”

He laughs and the sound is melodious to my ears. I can only stay rooted to my feet and watch with parted lips as he glows.

“Dom?” He stops laughing when a faint voice calls for him and he turns to the door the same time my eyes goes there.

My fingers digs into my palms because I know who’s waiting for him behind the door and when Dom turns back to me, he says, “That’s my wife.” He winks, and I force a smile, pretending my heart didn’t shatter at hearing him refer to another woman with that term. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

I open my mouth to speak but I don’t get any words out before Dom turns away. And I wish my eyes didn’t follow. Because when he walks in, I catch a glimpse of Wendy in her lace nightwear. She throws herself into his arms and I catch his chuckle before the door shuts on my face.

I remain by his door for a while and it doesn’t take long before I hear her moans and the sound of whispers.

I swallow through the tightness of my throat before turning away, making for my room with a broken heart and my eyes stinging with tears.

I shut my door and walk to my bed. I push my face into the mattress and dread what’s to come tomorrow.

I wish tomorrow wouldn’t arrive.