You cannot break a woman who wraps herself with love, faith, and prayers.~ARLET~~~~~~~~~~The sight of the releasing white smoke in the air before I could stop them made me clasp my chest with desperation. I swallowed my seized heart painfully. With a heavy core, I walked down the hallway and came to my room, only to see my phone buzzing, displaying Milo’s name.I picked up the phone but ensured my eyes were clear and sparkling, fading from all the incidents.“Hey,” he mumbled, but as far as I know, he would read my eyes, and I couldn’t allow to show him anything. I waved my hand with an enlightened smile.“So, are you coming today?” My eyes shifted from the screen towards the wall clock, realizing nobody had told me when Raya would return. I bobbed, conceding to his request to meet at ten.“Is everything fine with you?” I pretended to frown and motioned. I missed him so much. Lips twirled up, and I knew my act of a smile convinced him.“See you at ten. Do you want me to pick you up

I am in love just with the deception you have created between us.~Arlet~~~~~~~~~~~~Roses are red. Violets are blue. There is only one life I want to spend with you. Carrying this card I made on valentine’s day. I rode my bike to get close to the high school to give it to him. But I couldn’t advance on the street; my feet jammed even if I practiced in front of the mirror a thousand times. Call it my nervousness or the fear of rejection, but I never gave my first letter to him.I stood there when he and his friends crossed the street and walked past me. I called his name, but no one heard me.Ruben...Ruben... and someone pushed me from my bike, and I fell.My eyes upsurged, and the bright light falling on my cornea made them shut again. With caution, my eyes adjusted to the light coming from the window.It was a dream.I sat in a sitting posture against the headboard and conceded I was in my room, but how did I land here when the last scene I remember was not the same?“You are awak

There is a feeling of being trapped between wanting to forget and wanting to hold on.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~RUBEN~Sprinting from my suffocating vulnerability, my foot stopped beside my car. Looking intently at the marching cloud, ready to wash away, everything on the ground thundered again. But they could not stop me from celebrating my failure.First, my marriage, and then my business. Everything was pulling back from me, and I couldn’t do anything but stand and watch it going like a dunce. I drove past the resistance, pulling me back into my home to look after the woman who suffered through my hand, but what a botch I had inside that brought out the worst in me. What a mess I was in where I was the culprit, and I was the victim, too.The haunted maze reminded me of my mistakes. Falling in love is pulling me down and making me suffer more.Brayan watched me.“I just... I’m losing everything, Brayan.”“These architects, I worked hard to get them onboarded.” Even the booming music coul

Every time you judge me, you are showing me a part of you that needs healing.~ARLET~There comes a time when pushing someone’s expectations has become difficult to execute. The evening arrived when the anticipations coming from Kathy and Michael had to be performed. Since morning I was restless, thinking, am I the right person to go with Ruben?Do we need to pretend like a happily married couple in love in front of his friends, too? Because last time I checked, their expressions on the wedding evening exported the confusion, same as Ruben’s.Looking at the blur mirage in the window, my mind sifted, and my thoughts accumulated; he might have ignored this invitation as his parents would not be there to keep us in check. But when he came to the breakfast table, he mentioned the party to Raya. Our eyes met, and his expression never betrayed like a stone-cold gaze towards me, expecting nothing, just avoidance. For a few days, it has become a habit for us to spend some time together at the

How scary the feeling of drowning is in a place without water, but only your thoughts.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~RUBEN~Because people see the situations from their perspectives, their narrative of the event would come out differently. Not that I was bothered by their perception, but sometimes the people you love become the reason for you to stand in the quicksands of your choices. Confusion is when you cannot process with your conscious mind, but your subconscious knows this could become a race to lose. For a moment, Arlet seems genuine, but the way she entered my life has left me sore enough not to think anything good about her intentions.My parents were out of the city, but my mother somehow knew I was about to ditch Kathrine’s party, and to clear her doubts, she called me.“Ruben, how are you doing?”“I am good, just finishing my work,” Still engulfed in time, I didn’t realize when the evening had arrived.“Is everything ok with you?” Halted with her words, my inner turmoil churned one