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CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHTH

Penulis: JeniGN
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-06-05 14:01:22

I woke to silence.

Not the kind that greets you at dawn, gentle and full of promise, but the kind that stings your eardrums. The kind that presses down on your chest like a stone you can’t lift. I didn’t know where I was at first. The ceiling above me was unfamiliar—stained white plaster, a flickering light bulb dangling like a ghost.

There was a soft beeping. Machines. Somewhere, a nurse murmured to someone outside the door. I realized slowly: I was in the clinic.

Then I remembered everything.

And I wished I hadn’t woken up.

I turned my head. My body ached as though I’d been beaten. My throat was raw, my eyes swollen. It felt like a hundred years had passed since I last breathed without pain.

The door creaked open, and Signora stepped in, her shoulders hunched. She looked older than she had a day ago. In her hands was a bundle—Romero’s clothes, folded neatly, as if that would make them lighter to carry.

“I didn’t want them to just throw these out,” she whispered, placing them on the
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  • The Man I Swore to Hate   FINAL CHAPTER

    Before everything. Before her touch ever claimed me. Before her name ever burned its mark into my ribs.It started with a glance. That’s all it ever takes, isn’t it? I first saw her behind her father’s shoulder. She dressed like she was born to be stared at. All gold and silk and danger, surrounded by men with last names older than the buildings they owned. It was a winter benefit—one of those grand, exhausting things where men in velvet coats paraded their wealth and whispered politics over aged scotch. I was standing beside my father, doing what I always did in those kinds of rooms: watching, calculating, remembering names I’d be expected to know by next week.She didn’t see me. Not that night. Not really. I was another Hidalgo in a black suit, carrying the weight of a name too heavy for most men’s shoulders.But I saw her.Carmenta Paradis. The girl the whispers warned you about. The one they said would devour you whole if you let her. I wasn’t afraid, though. I was fascinated. Not

  • The Man I Swore to Hate   CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHTH

    I woke to silence.Not the kind that greets you at dawn, gentle and full of promise, but the kind that stings your eardrums. The kind that presses down on your chest like a stone you can’t lift. I didn’t know where I was at first. The ceiling above me was unfamiliar—stained white plaster, a flickering light bulb dangling like a ghost.There was a soft beeping. Machines. Somewhere, a nurse murmured to someone outside the door. I realized slowly: I was in the clinic.Then I remembered everything.And I wished I hadn’t woken up.I turned my head. My body ached as though I’d been beaten. My throat was raw, my eyes swollen. It felt like a hundred years had passed since I last breathed without pain.The door creaked open, and Signora stepped in, her shoulders hunched. She looked older than she had a day ago. In her hands was a bundle—Romero’s clothes, folded neatly, as if that would make them lighter to carry.“I didn’t want them to just throw these out,” she whispered, placing them on the

  • The Man I Swore to Hate   CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

    The sea did not give him back. By morning, I was still sitting by the shore, lips chapped from the wind, eyes raw from staring into the distance, searching for a boat that never returned. The sun had already risen twice since he left, and with it, my hope had slowly, cruelly bled into the tide.Romero was gone.No letters. No note tucked into the corner of our bed. No warning. Only that last look he gave me, that flicker of defiance mixed with sorrow, and then the sound of the engine drifting further and further into the dark.When the fishing boats began returning empty, I knew. I knew before they said anything. Before Eljo came again, soaking wet and stammering, "Carmen, we looked—God, we looked everywhere—but there's no sign of him or the boat." I was already shaking by then, teeth clenched to keep the scream from tearing out of my throat.I told myself he had docked somewhere else. That maybe he made it to another cove. That he had caught something so big he stayed longer to pull

  • The Man I Swore to Hate   CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

    I woke to the sound of a motor sputtering to life.The sheets beside me were cold. The sun hadn't fully risen, just a pale wash of light creeping through the cracks in our bamboo windows. I sat up, heart already kicking in my chest.No.I threw on my shawl, shoved my feet into slippers, and ran barefoot down the path toward the shore. My throat stung from the cold air, my arms prickled. When I reached the clearing, the worst fear curled into reality—Romero was on the boat.He stood barefoot on the hull, steadying the outriggers like it was a normal day. Like the sea didn’t kill men. Like he wasn’t a man with lungs that sometimes trembled and a heart that gave strange rhythms on cold nights.“Romero!” I shouted.He didn’t even flinch. Just cast a rope loose, calm as ever.“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”He looked over his shoulder at me, his eyes catching the morning light. “Fishing,” he said plainly, like he was saying the word breathing.I stormed into the shallows, skirt

  • The Man I Swore to Hate   CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

    The house had been too quiet lately.Rosetta and Achileas’s absence was louder than the silence I used to carry. I found myself setting out four plates at dinner, only to remove two with a tight smile when Romero gave me a knowing glance. They've been gone only a few moths. Studying abroad. Living on their own. Thriving, maybe. Or pretending to. Like I used to.Romero found me out by the edge of the property again, standing where the grass thinned and the earth dropped into the flow of the river. My old spot. Where I once shouted into the wind, and where, just days before Rosetta left, I had my final real conversation with her.“You’ll catch a cold,” Romero said gently, placing a shawl over my shoulders.I didn’t answer. I was staring across the river like it could bring her back. He didn’t push me. He stood beside me like he always did, patient, warm. Unshakable.“She still hasn't told you why she chose to study abroad?” I muttered. “She says it was her friend from class, but I don't

  • The Man I Swore to Hate   CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

    The river had always been a part of our lives. It had watched us grow old. Watched us fight and make up. Watched our children learn to swim, to laugh, to cast their nets and dream of flying elsewhere.Now, the river watched us again. Just the two of us.Romero stood at the stern, shirt rolled up to his elbows, sun kissing the edges of his brown skin as he pushed the pole slowly through the water. The boat glided smoothly beneath the morning hush, water lapping at its sides in a rhythm we’d come to love.I sat on the bench near the bow, legs tucked beneath me, a straw hat shielding my face from the sun.“She really left,” I said, more to the sky than to him. “Even the room looks different now. As if it sighed after she walked out with her luggage.”He smiled faintly, eyes on the slow-moving river. “It’s strange, isn’t it? We spent years wishing for peace and quiet. Now it feels like too much.”“I made two cups of coffee this morning,” I said. “Out of habit. I used to make three.”“You’

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