WINTER:
Calcifer held his breath. He was not expecting anything. He believed I could not ask him?"H-how can you think that?"He put the spoon down and faced me. His eyes held a lot of emotions which I could not decipher, but above all, I saw pity. Pity for me that he would be leaving me?It was not hidden to me that women were after him. Especially Carmela. Maybe the two will be celebrating after I sign the papers directly. "Tell me why I should not get worried, Calcifer. Tell me because that might be the reason why you have forgotten about our second wedding anniversary."His eyes widened, remembering this important day. "Pumpkin. I'm so sorry. I forgot. This was an honest mistake."He never forgot even if this was only a marriage of convenience because the Calcifer I knew was not like that. He was putting all his efforts into something if there were some upcoming important events. "Let's forget about this anniversary and talk about the most important thing you wanted to say, Calcifer."He averted his gaze. He looked troubled and I was causing it. I could no longer pretend that I was happy now. My smile faded and showed him the real emotion I felt now—sadness."You can tell me what you want, Calcifer," I urged. "I won't bite or tell Father about this. I am your wife. You can tell me whatever you want."Please? Tell me where I was wrong and I will fix it myself. He heaved a sigh and that was my cue that he lost his appetite.He looked at me. "Do you forgive me for forgetting our second anniversary?""Like I said, we can set that aside. It's not that important." It was important to me since I believed I only had a few months to live. That is why I want to cherish everything. He heaved a long sigh. "Pumpkin…The past few months have been rough.""It was because of me," I said. "Is that the reason why you were able to come up with a decision?"He groaned and shook his head. "You were unreachable. No matter what I do, you don't want to let me in your world. In your mind.""That was true. It's my fault. I had been dealing with something.""Something which you cannot tell your husband? This marriage started because of a contract, but I told you before that I want to make this work. I believe in the sanctity of marriage, pumpkin.""This is only a marriage of convenience, Calcifer. You are using our family so that your company would be back on its feet again. You don't care about me at all. Tell me. Do you consider me a burden?"Calcifer shook his head. "I never said that. I did try to make this work, pumpkin, but I did not know how far away you are from me.""If that's the case, why are you divorcing me?"His eyes widened in surprise. "Pumpkin, that...""Enough calling me pumpkin when you're truly sick of calling me that. Strip off your pretentious act now, Calcifer. Tell me what you want while I am still nice. Because if I won't, I will tell Daddy about this."His face hardened."I was nothing but good to you. But after overhearing you that you're going to divorce me, I could not help but wonder if your treatment is real or not.""I'm not a hypocrite, Winter. Everything I showed you was real. My efforts were real. I promised myself that whoever was the woman I marry, I won't leave her."I scoffed. "Really? Then why would you file for divorce? Until now you don't love me.""I am sure we felt the same. You don't love me too and that's what we are even. That's why I pushed through with my plan."I fell silent. If you only knew how much you had grown into my heart. If you only know how much I wanted to hug you right now and beg you not to push this divorce. But how could I imprison someone who does not even want me to begin with?"What do you want?""A divorce from this marriage. My freedom."My knees crumbled under the table, but I pretended that I was not affected at all. "The envelope earlier was not our marriage certificate but a divorce paper. How many months are you planning about this? One of Daddy's condition is that we will be staying with each other until two years. We are still in—""Today is our second year anniversary, Winter. It's written in the contract that I am now allowed to divorce you.""There was nothing like—"And then it hit me. He was right. Father did say that because he believed I would die after our second wedding anniversary.I did not die, but I'm going to lose the love of my life. "I waited for the right timing."How long did he wait for this? How long was he planning for this?"You're unhappy with me?" I asked, my voice always breaking in the end. Be brave, Winter. "I...I don't know how to deal with you. You're difficult to deal with. You don't let me in. I did try, pumpkin. I tried to reach out to you. But you always shove me away, saying you want to be alone."I felt that. "So you're giving up on me because you find me difficult?" I stared at the ceiling and then back at Calcifer. "Now I finally understand why old people say that love is important in marriage. If you don't love your significant other, the marriage will fail.""Winter. This is for your own benefit."How could this be to my benefit?"It's for your own selfish benefits, Calcifer. It's because of Carmela, right. Did you cheat on me even if we are still married? And now that you have the chance to be with her, then you're finally doing it?"His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "You know about Carmela? Did you do anything to her?"Such allegations. Now, he was thinking I planned something evil against his girlfriend. "Is that what you think of me? You love that woman? If I sign the divorce paper, will you marry her? You're only saying everything was because of me because I would be sorry to you and sign the paper right away. But the reason why you want us to divorce is because of your woman!""I don't have a woman, Winter. We did communicate, but it's purely business. Carmela invested in our business just like what your father did.""Bullshit! Either you tell me the real reason why you want to divorce or not."Calcifer's eyes widened momentarily. He never heard me curse. Dad always scolded me if I did. "Winter. I told you the truth.""I don't believe that."My eyes swam with tears. Damn it. I did not want to be a cry baby. The doctor said that I should not stress myself or that might trigger the cancer cells. But how could I stop myself?Calcifer. I loved him so much that it broke my heart seeing him want to divorce me.He pulled out papers. "Believe or not has nothing to do with me. Please sign the papers once and for all, Winter."WINTER:I smiled sadly at the realization that my husband had already decided he was going to leave me. “You cannot be stopped, Calcifer.”Calcifer smiled sadly. “I already decided, pumpkin. I am leaving,” he stated quietly. “This is for the best.”For the best? What kind of twisted idea was that? I loved him so why was he leaving me? How could he be so unfair?My heart continued to bleed like crazy.If only I had the power to make him stay…You can make him stay if you tell him that you two are expecting a baby!My hands laid protectively on my stomach.If he already left me over some simple thing, how much more if it was already serious?Calcifer was the type of man who would leave whenever he had the chance to and telling him that we would soon be parents just to make him stay was something I did not want to do.I tried to memorize his face for the last time. His nose. His jaw. The beautiful colors of his eyes. Everything about him. How could it come to this? I loved this man so mu
WINTER: One month later…The house looked empty when Calcifer was no longer with me in the house. No matter where I looked, I was always reminded of him and the things he did for me. Of the way he took care of me. Of pampering me.It had been a month since I last saw my ex-husband. Daddy still did not know what happened to my marriage, but I knew it sooner or later he would find out about this. And he would explode in anger. As much as I hated my ex-husband, I did not want Dad and him to fight because of me. I don’t know if I was able to face him. Or not. It was scary to know the things Dad might be capable of doing against Calcifer and his company. “Miss Winter? Are you okay?” Ynes, my maid asked. She was a forty-year-old woman who had been with us for quite some time now. And sometimes, her children would come over to the house and help her clean it which I welcomed. After my ex-husband left, the house seemed sad. “Maybe it’s best if you just sit, Miss Winter.” She came to my sid
WINTER: Three Years Later…“Come here, Liam,” I ordered to my three-year-old son. We were done taking our breakfast and were now strolling through the children’s park in the neighborhood. His attention was caught when a bird landed on the floor, staring down at him. “You’re not going to catch him, alright? The bird is only looking at the children.”“Why does the bird have small eyes, Mommy?” he asked, his brows forming a straight line. “Why do his eyes don’t look like mine?”I chuckled while looking for some answers in my mind. I really did not know why.“Ahm…God designed him that way. Come on, now.”At three years old, Liam can talk now and can form sentences. He was chatty like her father and the resemblance between them was uncanny. Seeing him was like seeing my ex-husband. Calcifer and I had never met again and I believed that was for the best. I did not want him to approach me because the reason was our child. I sighed as I watched him continue staring at the bird, his curios
WINTER:My mouth fell open as I continued staring at my husband. Calcifer. He was as handsome as ever. The curls in his hair reminded me of the waves on the ocean rushing towards the shore. Just like my pretty Liam. My heart clenched as the memories of our marriage rushed through my mind. And our last meeting. The signing of the divorce papers. Was he happy now? Maybe because there was no longer the woman who was giving him a hard time.Did he still remember how he hurt me? Did he still remember how he was cruel by giving up on me? If I did not stop Dad, Calcifer would be dead by now. Out of his anger, he nearly ordered someone to kill Calcifer. It was evil, of course, but I could not blame Dad.Despite what had happened to our marriage, I did not want anything to happen to him. I wanted to focus on the things when we were still happy and how good he was to me. I was brought out of my shock and rushed to my crying son.The man. No. Calcifer was stunned for a moment realizing it w
WINTER:My heart thumped wildly against my ribcage. I should not be listening to my ex-husband now and turned my back. He was already part of my past and that I was no longer to return to it. But what was this little part of me that wanted to listen to him?Am I that foolish that I was seriously considering listening to him?“Pumpkin…” He grabbed my hand and as if burned at the touch, I slapped it away. Calcifer looked at me with pain in his eyes. You're not going to fall for those crocodile tears, Winter. Don't you ever dare try!I pulled myself together and laughed at him. “Are you getting poor?”His forehead knotted. “Poor? No, pumpkin—”“Liar!” I spat while my knuckles turned white. “You're only saying this because you're losing your money. You want me back? Really? How come you never looked for me or attempted to look for me during those three years?”He heaved a sigh. “I did. But you were nowhere to be found. You went abroad.”Well, that was true. I did and gave birth there
WINTER:I was glad I never fell on my ex-husband’s scheme. He wanted me back and Liam even after he had a child on his own? What a tough face. Had he no shame? What about Carmela?What if it was not his child? What if he was only babysitting that child?Say for example if that was the case. But then, he could hire someone to do it for him. As much as I knew, his company had prospered a lot and all businessmen were always after him.I mentally shook my head.Why would I let him confuse me again? Calcifer had already done great damage in my life and ruining it again for the second time was already foolishness.We had long gone to the children’s park, but my mind was left to Calcifer. Hawk was eyeing me every once and again, wanting to ask something, which he contemplated if he would pursue or not. He never knew anything of my past except Ynes. Sometimes, the two would talk and I had a feeling that Ynes had already given him snippets of my past. Ynes could blurt out some things which h
WINTER: I played with my hands on my lap. “M-Miss Winter, we never talked about that.” Hawk’s face went red. He was not used to this kind of thing. “I’m only your bodyguard. Not your pretend fiancé.” “I’m so sorry, Hawk. But please bear with me. Until my ex-husband stopped pestering me.” He shook his head. “He will never stop, Miss Winter. He still wants you.” “Why would he do that when he already has a child?” “I don’t know. But I cannot promise anything to you, Miss Winter. Pretending to be your fiancé might be a little difficult, but if it’s what you want, I will try.” “Thank you,” I said. A couple of minutes passed and Hawk finally pulled over in Dad’s mansion. He hurried outside and opened the door beside me and opened it. “I’ll carry Liam for you.” I nodded, stepped out of the car, and waited for Hawk. In a matter of seconds, he was already carrying my son, and together we entered the mansion. Daddy was already waiting for the three of us. Given his old age, he was s
WINTER:Why are all of my loved ones either going to die or dead? It made me think that I did not deserve to be loved. That sooner or later, they will be taken away from me. Am I that bad?Dad's expression froze seeing the tears that were trying to come out in my eyes.“Winter…I should have kept silent about this. Taking care of Liam is already hard enough. I don't want to be a burden to you.”“A burden? Stop that! You will never be a burden to me.”Why did it have to be Dad? He was the best Dad. He had given me all the love that he could give and protected me from everything. “I will take care of you like how I take care of Liam.”My heart continued to bleed like crazy, stood and closed the distance between us and engulfed him with a hug. Now that I realized it, Dad was already losing a lot of weight. I was so focused on Liam that I never realized he was also in pain too. That he was suffering from cancer. Guilt washed over me and felt like I was the worst daughter. “I don't expe