Chapter 12 Catastrophic Elixirs

Songs for this chapter are:

Poison - Rita Ora

Say so - Doja Cat

Before - 1k phew

Nice things - Wande, Taylor Hill

**

An unwelcome cackle of laughter seizes the words that were initially meant to proceed from my lips. I could not believe Mustafa was doing this.

"Cheating on me..?" I repeated his words by questioning them and I raised a brow skeptically. "I know you want us to be beyond friends and I remember begging you very desperately to let it all be, but I wasn't expecting this from you. I—"

"Look, you know how much I respect boundaries, yours to be precise. You already asked me not to hit on you and I would not hit on you. I would ensure that my feelings for you die away completely just so I don't hit on you because you are my friend and I have to respect your do's and your dont's but believe me when I tell you that Dan is cheating on—"

He does not get to complete his sentence neither do I get to hear it because I disconnected the call, hanging up on him.

I clutch on the fabric of my uniform, as though the move would stop my heart from falling or breaking. I want to believe that Mustafa is saying these things because he's selfish; he is willing to do what he can to have me now that we have shared a kiss and because he's jealous of my relationship with Dan.

I want to believe that and that is what I would stick to. Dan can not be cheating on me just like that, can he?

That can not be the reason why he has not been present for about a week to sell milk to the students of my school right? No. He has to be sick like I initially presumed. That has to be it.

Yes.

My phone chimes again, vibrating on my palm, and just before I want to decide whether to dismiss the call or not, I see a notification come up on my phone. It is a message from my friend, Zoe, and the message on my notification bar reads;

Babes, you need to see this.

Then a photo comes right after her text. I click on the photo hurriedly and of course, shock grips my face like a naked wire. For minutes on end, my mouth is widely open in agape; hot tears streaming down my cheeks.

It is a picture of Dan in a motel, laid out and wasted on a sofa, seemingly very high with about four to five ladies sprawled out, moving their fingers in a serpentine motion all over his chest, probably to his crotch whilst two ladies are peppering his face with his kisses, and caresses. He looks very ecstatic he's having the time of his life.

My phone vibrates again, and it's a video that comes in next from my friend. I still dare to click on the video, even after my heart has been long shredded.

There is loud music booming from a bazooka immediately after I click on the video. Dan is seen driving into a lady anally, as the lady is sprawled over a lawn tennis table with her back arched, butt naked as Dan is ramming into her furiously, the lady is moaning, and calling on her mother to save her from a guy who might just kill her with his oversized penis.

I manage to pause the video, despite how shaky or even temporarily paralyzed my hands are at the moment and I bring my hand to my mouth, trying to stifle my loud sobs, as I fall on my knees, holding my chest firmly with the other hand and crying so much. My mind is reeling.

I just can't bring myself to understand the logic behind him cheating on me and sleeping with so many girls like nobody's business.

I thought Dan loved me. I thought he loved me very well enough to hear my side of the story because he always wanted to know what I had to say about things even when we were having the most random discussions.

I thought he was invested in loving me as he has always expressed.

I mean, he spent eight years searching for me. He promised he would be back for me and he fulfilled his promise. He took a lot of risks for my sake and it is clear that he was very much ready to lay down his life for me and then we meet again, so the love we share and the seeds of love he planted can sprout and bloom beautifully in its season.

But it has not been up to three months and he is willing to give it all up like our love has got no solid foundation at all.

Just like that? How so? It didn't even seem like a real thing to do. No one does things this way.

I kept sobbing so hard when I heard footsteps. Movements, putting aside the crumples of fallen leaves with each stride. I felt nothing in my heart because it was numb now after shattering numerously. But I know for sure that it is him. He is here now. After I had just gotten the biggest shock of my life.

Damn the elixir! So this was its plan?!

It wasn't going to let us meet each other until one person gets the catastrophe; the pain, the heartbreak. It was like the elixir was in favor of one person to the other's dismay; as though someone manipulates the elixir to work that way. For one person's favor.

Has this been the core of a soulmate relationship? Did it always work this way?

I thought everything worked in equilibrium for two hearts that beat as one. I thought love worked as a scale and not a pendulum.

Why?

I rose to my feet to meet face to face with him. A smirk graced the corner of his lip. He stared back at me, his hands resting relaxedly in his trouser pockets; unbothered and unshaken by the sight of me crying heavily. He looked like he comes to be sure that I got the news; to see if the elixir had worked in his favor.

Seeing my reaction seemed to give him so much joy that he is trying to suppress the laughter ebbing from within so he does not come off as being blatantly rude.

I could not find the words to say as they seemed to have flown out of my head but he spoke first, affirming the thoughts my mind had been breeding ever since he came here.

"You saw the videos right? I'm sure you want me inside of you like that, huh? Because those videos must have had your panties soaking wet." He scoffed, biting his lips observantly.

"When did you become a jerk, Dan? Because I do not remember you ever showing signs that you have always been one. You just can not walk up to me and have a change of attitude in just one week. Why did you cheat on me like that without getting to hear my side of the story?"

"Oh, because you know you cheated on me first right?" He scoffed.

"Yes I did and I know you must have found out from—"

"Yes I saw the video you cheating bitch! I felt the same way you are feeling now when I saw students passing by my milk truck and playing videos of you kissing an Arabian boy on a stage with everyone shouting and cooing and cheering yet you had the bravery to still walk up to me that same day to tell me that you love me. I rode my milk truck home the day I saw those videos and cried my hearts out. I wasted my time for eight years, searching for someone that already belongs to someone else and is deeply in love with him."

Gosh! These students are freaking unbelievable! Why the heck did they tape that?? Did they fancy Mustafa and I being together that much hence they had to toss it because they knew that would be the first and the last time, they would ever get to see the two of us kissing, or they taped it so they could use it to my dismay?

"And that's why I'm here to explain everything to you, Dan. I love you. I love you more than life and I spent eight good years, deciphering what I have always felt about you but when I saw you that day in the milk truck, my mind was instantly made up. There was one thing I did not tell you about when you asked about my well being." I swallowed.

"Of course, there is always that one thing you don't talk about. Then you fabricate stupid stories when you do something that deserves no freaking excuse." He laughs, rolling his eyes, evidently irritated by the sound of my voice, something that used to sound like music to his ears.

But I do on regardless, thankful that doesn't interrupt me now.

"I suffer from Phantosmia, Dan. I get olfactory hallucinations very often and it only got worse about a year ago. This means that I smell odors that do not exist and that's why I kissed Mustafa mistakenly because I thought he smelled so much like you whereas he smelled nothing close to that and then it got so terrible that I began to see you, instead of him. I was hallucinating. All my life, I have spent so much time and money, trying to get rid of the damn illness because it got more and more, upsetting. It is disrupting the quality of my life. I was very ashamed of it, hence I said nothing about it to anyone. There are times where I say I can smell something and I tell the person next to me about what I perceive and I get mocked for having supernatural nostrils." I explained, wiping another fresh set of tears that fell down my cheeks.

My slavery experience did so much damage to my sense of smell in a very terrible way. A week after I returned from the castle and into my house, I knew I had to get my lungs checked after inhaling so many kinds of toxic gases; fumes, carbon monoxide, and rubbish in the castle and I was beginning to get terrible symptoms. My chest pain got worse, I started coughing out blood and I got worse kind of migraines. Depression came along as well.

I spoke to my dad about it and he took me to the hospital the following day. I thought the doctor was going to diagnose me with asthma or some other lung problems that I could handle but when I heard that big name, Phantosmia, my heart thudded loudly against my chest.

It gave me more anxiety. It sounded like cancer. There is something about learning a disease you've never heard before; even if it's trivial and benign, it ends up sounding like something incurable.

Afterward, the doctor explained what the disease was to me but it did not make me feel any better regardless because the chances for me to get better were very slim since my senses were already very accustomed to toxic gases and it only got worse because I had sustained a head injury once, when the loan shark hit me hard on the head on my tenth birthday, the day I lost my friend, Krystal.

I've had to live with crazy ailments and its symptoms; migraine and even depression.

"I've been depending on tranquilizers my whole life, just to stay fine in the best possible way. I didn't cheat on you deliberately, Dan. I can never do that." I said on a final note, after explaining every single detail to him.

"But it hurts me to see you with—" he clenched his fists, clearly affected by all that I'd said but my heart dropped when all he said after opening his mouth was pure crap.

"Seriously Dan? You still do not care about all I just said? About my health?" I asked in disbelief, wiping all the tears away from my face and dusting the debris off my clothes. "Do whatever suits you. You even had me wondering where you got all of that money to spend by going to a motel, yet you lie to me that you've got no money..."

Right there, I decide that it's the end of everything that has ever occurred or would occur between us in the future. He is not worth it. He never was but I didn't realize it because he seemed to be very genuine and I could not blame myself for not figuring out what his intentions were because of how hideous he was.

But I'm thankful to have realized it all now before things got farther between us. It's still very unbelievable though that years of affection and bonding would amount to a very devastating ending.

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Psalms 55:12-14 - "For it is not an enemy who reproaches me; then I could bear it. Nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me; Then I could hide from him. But it was you, a man my equal, my companion and my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God in the throng."