CHAPTER 6

If there was one place Elysia could find solace in, it was very obvious.

Her grandmother's home.

As she dried the plates, she masked her face with a wry smile, irrespective of the fact that the event that had happened recently seemed to partially break her.

“What's taking you so long, girl?” Her angelic voice seemed to jolt Elysia out of her thoughts.

“Are you doing something else other than that?”

Nana had an attitude of asking questions continuously till she was given an answer to at least one of them.

“No, Nana,” the clattering sound of the plates colliding against one another, the sound of running water and the mowing of the mawn outside done by the gardener filled the air and made it almost impossible for anyone around her to hear what she had just said, not to talk of her grandmother who was ten meters away from her, at the very least.

She knew she had to get out of the kitchen if she was going to answer her, so she did just that.

Walking into the sitting room, Elysia found Nana looking at a photo album with her hand supporting her head while leaning on the armrest.

“Looks like I'll have to get a megaphone for you before you come next time,” she teased the younger lass.

As much as Elysia tried to maintain the smile on her face, it dissolved into a void expression, but her grandmother's eyes were fixed intently on her, so she did what she could do best.

Avoid it from morphing into a frown.

“You should take your seat,” Nana gently tapped the chair close to her, and the former obeyed, without hesitating one bit. “You've been coming here more often though, is there a problem?”

Her grandmother had a puzzled look on her face. Nana could always read Elysia like an open book but Elysia fought hard to turn the page away from the truth.

How could she even arrive at the answer that nothing was okay?

That Orion was now with the woman he had always loved, and he even asked for divorce.

But all that, all that was just the tip of the iceberg, and that could be considered as one of the factors that broke her. She was pregnant, but she could not say it.

Due to her selflessness.

A selflessness that Orion never saw, or maybe he just decided to turn a blind eye to it.

“Talk to me, my child. Is something bothering you?” With a feeble collision of her elbow and Elysia's arm, the senior citizen sat up, taking her face away from her hand.

“There's nothing wrong Nana,” she reassured her with a fake smile on her face that was a stark contrast to her emotional state. “I just feel like I've not been visiting you like I should.”

“Oh shut up, I know you.” her cover was blown, and no one needed to tell her.

That was why she tended to avoid eye contact with Nana whenever she was lying- she could easily figure it out by merely looking at her eyes.

“Even though I'm old, do you think I'm dumb?” Although she smiled, Elysia knew her grandma was serious, and her lips compressed into a thin line as she waited for her to finish what she was saying.

“I'm sorry, I just lied this once,” she threw her hand around her grandmother's neck, tears gathering in her eyes as her heavy heart begged for a release but Nana shrugged it off with a smirk. “I won't do that again.”

"It doesn't matter the marital challenge you're facing my girl, you're stronger than it and I know you'd overcome it soonest. Your husband loves you so much..." Nana was still talking but Elysia's mind had wandered.

Did Nana talk about love in her marriage in reference to Orion? No. She was the only one that ever did the loving, ever made efforts to keep the marriage, Orion, he only ever thought of her platonically.

"Family," that was the term he often used with her not "partner" not "couple" just the shenanigans of him caring about her as family as he would Nana. Tsk.

Nana would be heartbroken to learn the truth.

“ ...besides, today's his birthday isn't it?” Elysia's grandmother asked, with a concerned look on her face. “Orion to be precise.” She saw that Elysia was barely paying attention to her lecture.

“Yeah,” she answered absent mindedly and Nana smiled.

The years of wisdom told Nana that eventually Orion and Elysia were going to work out whatever problem they faced so Nana didn't push for details from Elysia.

Maybe she should have because....

The news Orion brought to Elysia a few days ago, and his recent behavior slowly deprived her of her happiness and smile. Not like she did not know it was going to happen someday, but he kept hurting her and she knew it wouldn't be long before she wore out. So she had accepted to walk away from the fight peacefully under the umbrella of divorce.

“You should not be here, child,” drawing her away from her line of thought, her grandmother handed a box to her with a smile. “Give it to him on my behalf.”

At first, she hesitated, then she took it from her, faking a smile with the hope of not letting her discover it was a fake.

If only, she knew the current situation of things.

He had not even come home the previous night, without a saying, he was probably with her, the woman behind their divorce, celebrating his birthday with her.

Scratch that.

‘What was I thinking?’ She thought. It was up to him to decide, and he did what he felt like doing, so why should she hold someone else responsible?