Chapter 9

"I went to your house last night and you weren't there. Your CCTV said that some rich people took you. You are still alive because I am still talking to you, what happened?” Katiya said without even stopping on the other line.

“CCTV? What CCTV?” I asked in confusion.

“Your neighbors. They knew everything about you.”

I shook my head. Of course, they never left their eyes on me.

I was just looking out of the window and just zone out. I have been with this stranger for more than two hours now. And I don't even know how to address him. Great.

“Where are you?” Katiya asked again.

“I’m heading home,” I answered.

“And those who created a scene in your house?”

“My parents. And yes, I'm still alive, obviously,” I replied to her questions earlier. “I lost them already. Not sure when I’d be able to live peacefully for the coming days, though.”

“You know I just need a word, Prescilla. I could make them pay in an instant. Just tell me,” Katiya said without any hint of remorse.

“Stop it, Katiya. They’re not worth your time.”

Is she even hearing herself? From how she delivered her line, there was nothing but seriousness. As if she would not hesitate to do what she just said.

I heard her tsked on the other line, disapproving what I've said. “I will be a criminal one way or another. To the right people. Those who are waiting for my payback. ”

I just gasped at her remarks. It’s really hard for me to bend her belief when she has already set her mind on it. “I hope you’ll meet someone that would lighten your drugged mind. Drugged with revenge,” I commented.

I couldn’t help but sigh again. I guess from the time I met Katiya, there was never a day that I didn't hear her say such words every time we talked.

She has her own demon and it's eating her good. She wouldn't be so invested in her revenge if she didn't.

I only know a few pieces of her puzzled life. It doesn't even fill half of the whole picture. But the limited information I have was enough for me to know that what had happened to Katiya deserves justice.

Whether it’s justice placed in her own hands or one that came from the right authorities, it doesn’t matter. To get even is the only thing that Katiya wants, that's for sure.

"Tell that to yourself, Prescilla," she said coldly before ending the call.

"Who was that?" the man beside me immediately asked, obviously just waiting for the call to end before asking.

I changed the direction of my seat so that I could face him properly. The last words of Katiya lingers on my mind, making me think of things that include the man I am with. But I refuse to acknowledge what it was telling me about him.

He shouldn't be someone that would make me stop from what I am about to do. Yes, he did save me twice but that doesn't make him my superhero.

And I will never let anyone save me. Because before they can even reach for my hand, I will surely end everything faster than their rescue.

“Why are you helping me?” I asked, instead.

I watched how his forehead knotted and the way his grasp on the steering wheel tightened. He looks irritated and frustrated. “Because you need help,” he answered, in a way that seemed like it was the obvious answer.

“I actually don't. And you're just a stranger. You could just simply walk away from me as if I don't exist,” I reasoned out.

“Walk away from you as you let your car fall from a bridge while you’re still inside of it? Watch you slit your wrist? Nah, I am still sane enough to do that.” The car slowed down until it fully stopped because of the red signal of the traffic light. “And I'm Waldo Vidal. Now, I am no longer a stranger to you. I could help you whenever I want.”

“Hope,” I said. I immediately caught his attention, causing him to take his eyes away from the road to look at me. “That’s my name.”

I stilled when what happened a month ago happened again. I thought I would never feel it once more. The flicker of light that filled the darkness ruling my world.

My heart started beating for life. It might be just a faint pump, but the impact it gave me was different. For the first time since my life was enveloped with darkness, my heart was pounding again as if longing to embrace life again.

The warmth coating his words reflected on the way he stares at me with full of gentleness. It was melting a small part of me, but I know that it would never be enough to save me.

He will never be enough to stop me and to pull me out of the darkness. Waldo would never be enough for me to want to live again.

Waldo’s eyes went soft, and he began to tenderly trace every feature of my face with his stares. And I just watched him, letting him see what he wanted to see.

From my forehead, his eyes went down to my eyes, down to my nose, cheeks, lips, and finally stopped at my wrist. It was now covered with a bandage so I could no longer see the wound that I made myself.

My wrist could not feel anything. But contrary to that, my heart was beating because of the pain that enveloped me again when I remembered the cause of the cuts I made to myself.

My child.

"Funny, right?" I laughed lifelessly. “I was named Hope, but my first name speaks for who I am more. Overpowering the meaning of my second name that I should be living with right now.”

I raised my uninjured hand to caress my wound on my wrist that had been there for several months since I first started.

It started when I accidentally cut it with the broken mirror that I threw on the wall the moment that the news about my loss came to me. I don’t know why I did it, the first time I did this ‘thing’.

But as I see my own blood coloring my shirt, it made me feel a tiny bit better. I saw it as a way to punish myself whenever the memory of my lost child flashes on my mind.

The guilt momentarily lessens with every cut I created on my skin. Until it became a routine.

He would have still been breathing. My baby's heart would have still been beating. Only if I didn't let him die.

“Priscilla. Vulnerability. That's the real me.”