Chapter 30 Leave

My world seemed to shake at the facts heard. Both my legs and my lips are shivering out of fear and confusion. My head and my cheeks aches but I don't notice that because I know my chest feels more painful. Tears welled up in my eyes as I was not thinking about anything. A few thousand words and questions entered my mind, I couldn't figure out where to start.

The dark road of Mar De Vena is as dark as everything for me. My eyes are blurry because of the pool of tears, as blurry as my mind. It was like a broken plaque repeating everything I heard in the abandoned hotel. The image of that woman, her eyes that screams loath that can never be forgiven. I can't, I can't pinpoint what's true and what's not.

"Stop the car."

"Ava, sign the contract and we're leaving-"

"Stop it!"

"This is not the time for this, did you see how many people heard that! Wait for minutes and the news will spread to everyone."

The heavens growled, at the same time as his desperate voice.

"Stop saying that! P-please! Please! Stop like you feel sorry for me!"

My eyes are shut tight and I closed my ears with both my hands because of the incessant thunder. I cried so hard, my chest almost felt like a bomb exploding due to piled up emotions. I can't handle everything. I just want to disappear suddenly. In a flash the car stopped and I hurriedly opened the door to get off.

The cold bullets of cloudburst felt like my own downfall. Painful skin, cold and persistent. Don't disappear. The trees beside the trail of the road are tall, the snap of the lightning are followed by the heavens roar. I almost stumbled on a mixture of mud and rocks on the road. I can't think of anything else I just want to runaway, I just want to disappear.

"Ava!"

My mom and my dad died because of fire caused by his mother. Lourd's mother, Levi's ... mother.

How? I shook one after another despite the heavy rain pouring down. The blazing fire in the island appeared in front of my eyes. The cries of the people on our island are all I hear. The burnt houses, the bodies of the people, the bodies of mother and father. My legs stumbled upon the rock, I got on my knees and my knee was definitely bleeding but I didn't care.

"Ava! Let's go! Go home to the Solidads and we're leaving!"

The emotions are too much, the pain is too much to handle. To hear from him that our departure was the only solution he could see I could not understand. He fooled me. They fooled me. I'm fooled by everybody. He grabbed my arms and tried to get me up. My vision is so dim that even the thunder I cannot afford to fear.

"Don't touch me!"

His desperate eyes froze. He couldn't figure out if my anger was what he wanted to focus on or the content of my mind. Looking at his face was both a hint of longing and anger. I wanted to feel sorry for him but I couldn't because of the truth I had heard. He's my brother? How? He knew everything and never once did he tell me? My flesh are shaking with the thought of him and his brother flatting their plan out. They meant these two. It was no accident that I met them at the same time. His weak expression can almost get me but I was still not shaken when he knelt down to help me as I fell on the dark road of Mar De Vena.We are both drowning in heavy rain ... in eternal pain.

"You fooled me. You fooled me!"

I can taste my tears. I can taste the rain pouring on my face. With all the strength left in me, I punched his chest with all might. The pain and tightness of my chest I could no longer understand.

"Ava, let's get out of here."

"Can you hear yourself? Why am I leaving !? The person who killed my mother and father is here!"

"Ava, just please. I'll take care of that but we have to get out of here."

"How ... I don't know."

My sobs are burying me deep. I am very weak and not patchy at all. My mom and my dad? They both love each other, and I am the witness there, I am the living proof of that. So I can't process my mother's being a fixture.

"Go home to the Solidad and there I will explain to you-"

"Who is that woman? Who is she and how did all this happen?"

I cried desperately to his face. Begging for him to answer the questions in my head.

"Tell me everything ... I feel sorry for you."

I held my chest and felt my heartbeat, the face of my mom and my dad were the things I could see in the dark. In that picture we were so happy, they look so happy.

"She's Helen Vidalio. She's papa's wife which I'm sure you've met already. I also don't know what the whole story is Ava, I came here to Mar De Vena in the hope that I could find all the answers to my questions and then I met you. "

I shuddered in frustration.

"I didn't lied to you Ava. I was trying to save you, I was trying to save both of us but my brother came into the conversation. I know you are so fond of my brother already, I was torn between choosing you over your happiness . "

I was even more devastated by what he said. His desperate words were like a dagger in my chest. Ripping all the thread that connects my anger and my trust.

"You're the only one I have, Ava. If you didn't love my sister, you would have known everything for a long time. And I don't want to! I don't want to hinder all your desires because that's what made you sick!"

No. No ... all this is not true. It was just a dream and when I woke up everything would return to normal. Impossible.

"Cyreese, I'm sorry."

I shook softly as Ate Celest talked. I don't think I can believe anyone else here in Mar De Vena I feel like they all betrayed me. Ate Celest confessed everything she knew, that all she knew was that the Vidalios had a dispute on the island where I grew up. She didn't mention about Levi's all through out of stay here and how he made me fall for him so bad so I assumed that was part of it all too. It's all just a big lie and infidelity.

A dream that if come true is still impossible to happen. I didn't mind everything she said, knowing everything she knew was enough for me. I stared intently at the photo of the three of us of mom and dad in my hands. Next to me is the bag and a few things that I have only brought here since I landed in Solidad. Helen Vidalio, she is the wife of Octavius Vidalio. Father of Levi, and my brother. Lourd Agustin Vidalio. Son of my mother Ava Agustin Suarez.

I remember the night before that flood happened, I thought it was just a common fight with the governor because of the demolition that would happen on the island, I thought I was just dreaming when I woke up talking to mom and dad. I remember how my mother tried to convince my father to go to Helen Vidalio to beg because he was the one who planned all that.

But my dad loves her more than anything else, mom didn't do what she wanted to happen so it all ended in a nightmare. I need no further explanation. Just knowing that that woman is the reason I am an orphan now is no longer against any explanation. I don't have any doubt for my feelings, but my anger and loath is way more bigger than my love for him.

That stupid love is not reason enough if the lives of mom and dad are the substitute. He fooled me, he made me fall for him so bad, because what? In exchange for the mother's infidelity to their family?

Since they are not yet satisfied that they took the people in my life so I must also disappear? Ate Celest's apology is endless. And that only makes the anger I feel worse. I begged God to at least give me a pure heart, otherwise he would give me a chance to forgive. No matter how hard I try in my mind to understand everything, it just doesn't make sense. I feel like everyone has united me and the whole world plans to hurt me over and over again.

"Thank you so much for your help ma'am."

My voice croaked, nor could I look at them all. I don't want to leave Mar De Vena feeling angry. I don't want to leave without being able to say thank you. Unlike Ate Celest, the couple was more calm when I faced them. I don't know if they also know the whole story but for me that's how it is.

Ate Celest seems to be more defensive in the issue while they are not. Somehow it gave me silence. I'm just so done with all the pain inflicting since then, I don't know what to do to stop the pain. I stare at the waves crashing unto the shore. Every hiss of it reminds me the pain of my past. The more the way I think the more confused everything gets.

Anything I try to remove my connection to their family is impossible. Their child is my brother, their other child is ... My tears flowed at the thought. I want to hear his side, I want to hear his words, I badly wanted an explanation. That's what I wanted to happen but my heart was screaming very differently. My love for him is bigger than his mistakes but I know, whatever may happen I will always choose my family over him.

My brother begged me not to make noise, because this was what he was fighting for in the first place. He went to Mar De Vena to get away and escape the family he loved. To protect them because they are known family, and for him that's the best thing to do. To just forget things and leave every thing as it is. I don't get it at first, but seeing her cry forced me. He was torn with every single thing around him. His family, me, and his career.

And I also know that no matter what fight I do, I can't win it. I'm just this 18 years old lady in Mar De Vena. Hopeless and in despair. I sobbed as my knee hit the fine sand. I will leave this island, I will leave the reason why my heart is tied to it. This island will be a blessing and a curse.

Enough of the pain the island caused me to be a witness to everyone. This time I'm really leaving for good, I'm gonna leave my heart in this place and when the time I come back, it's more stabilized by the time. Narcissism is enough. It's time to choose someone else over my own feelings. It will benefit me no good.