MEMORIES OF THE PAST

CHAPTER THREE

Third person POV

This is too much . The memories kept flowing as though a trigger had been pushed and true it had. Delilah sat there down in her penthouse relieving the memories that had led her there. As she downed the glass of tequila that she had even lost count of the number of glasses she had downed. All she wanted to do right now is to numb all the pain, tonight was the last blow. And drinking seemed to help numb the pain but the memories kept flowing all at once reminding her of her cruel fate in love and how she was naïve to have her heart crushed several times.

She never thought she would get to see a day that she , the ‘lady D’ herself who had everything in this world could be crushed so badly. But what to say if her parents didn’t care about her and her two years boyfriend back then left her what more of those that they just shared a few months with.

As she was drinking away her sorrows she walked over to her dresser and opened the last drawer and took a chest that she would keep her special treasures. Inside , she found a small box and opened it to find a ring. She looked at the engagement ring that she had kept neatly in a small purple box. As if by cause the memories of the day she received it and how happy she was came back flowing fast. But she didn’t want to reminisce it. It was too painful to look back at herself back then. She took a deep breath to suppress all the memories back. She was not willing to go under that path again at least not for now. She placed it back and took out a grey old velvet jewelry box and started caressing it. Recalling on when her grandmother had gifted it to her. She was thirteen years back then. And she had gone to pay her grandmother back in south Africa a visit. Her granny had been so happy to see the little her.

“Lyla my pumpkin am so happy that you came,” her grandmother said while wrapping her arms around the small little girl. D loved the woman so much so that most of the holidays she would always run back to her grandma’s to spend it with her and besides the climate was awesome around there plus the beaches were warm and she loved it there. And especially her grannies cooking’s which were mouth watering. Especially the ‘braai’ which she enjoyed so much.

Back then anytime she visited, her grandmother usually made this dish the first day of her arrival as it was the girl’s favorite. One day after they had spent a whole day cleaning up the house her grandmother had asked Delilah to follow her up to her room. Where she sat her down and told her how she was proud of the lady she was becoming and how she adores her, unlike many kids who had such a broken relationship with their parents D didn’t show the signs like most kids did of rebellion among other bad characters she in fact grew up a responsible person.

Back then her grandmother had told her how special she was as she had a kind heart that not many had and that whoever she’d love would be a lucky guy, too bad they didn’t view it like her granny and turns out probably they were lucky but her, she was the unlucky one, unlovable to put it right. She had gone to her closet and came back with a grey velvet jewelry box in her hand and she had handed it to Delilah and told her it was a gift for her birthday which she had missed. Delilah took the box in her tiny hands and opened it to reveal a necklace, a pair of earrings and a bracelet. She adored them. The earrings had a shade of silver and a green stone had been engraved on them. As for the bracelet well, it was a blue topaz silver tennis bracelet which on the inner side had her name engraved on. ‘Lyla’ as her granny always called her. This was the nickname that only her grandmother called her, which was sometimes used by….. him.

And it was special to her like the lady behind it was. If it was in another occasion she wouldn’t have survived seeing the name but the memories of her granny helped her overshadow his memories of when he would use the name on her. As for the necklace it was a gold pendant with her name engraved on it. She was mesmerized by the beautiful jewelries that her grandmother had gifted her. She was so grateful that that night she promised her grandmother that she would be the one to cook dinner though they ended up preparing it both of them .

Her grandmother had once said that they were charm jewelries.

As she looked at them she started to wonder if truly they were charm jewelries or the old lady had just been pulling a neck on her. She even started cursing at her stupid heart recalling her grandmother’s words that she’s too kind, could this be it. Her kindness, was it just that she’s to kind to keep letting people break her over and over. She’s too kind to keep letting people inside her heart when all they do is break her instead of loving her. Could her kindness be the ticket to her unlucky or per se, her unlovable self, she wondered.

So could her kindness be the reason that she’s this broken. She stood there caressing the bracelet as she recalled her grandmother. Her grandmother was her world even though Delilah lived with her parents her grandmother was the rock of her life. She was always there when she needed her unlike her parents who were ever busy. Her grandmother was the one who had taught her of all the things that she knew besides those taught to her in school. Cooking, doing laundry tidying up herself instead of depending on her nannies and that came in handy lots of time. That’s why she had visited this penthouse.

It was where they had spent their last memories together. The last of memories she had of her grandmother with her were in this penthouse. Her grandmother loved it so much and since most of the time they spent it with Delilah in here she gifted it to her. That night had been so terrible. It was after Delilah had received an upsetting phone call stating that Kathrine’s condition i.e. her granny wasn’t improving and it deteriorated, from a nurse that had been looking after her from her home. When she got there her dad was there and one look at him and she knew this was it, it was a goodbye. Her father’s expression said it all and those were the few moments D saw her dad like that and that day she didn’t think twice but ran into his arms, whether it was to console him or be consoled she didn’t know exactly but she in deed felt like she had someone to always be there for her and that someone was her father. Delilah had begged her grandmother not to leave her. But her grandmother had made her promise that she would be okay and would take care of herself. She missed her so much.

“Granny why did you leave me. I miss you so much. I can’t do this alone I need your advice, your warm hugs and the hot porridge mugs you would make for me.” Delilah cried as she hugged one of her grandmother’s pullovers. She had only packed a few things but left all other inside the house that way she would not have erased her grandmother totally from the house and it helped her every time she came.

She put back the jewelries and set back the chest back to the drawer.

She put on her grandmother’s pullover that she was hugging and went to her grandmother’s room. She lay in her bed while hugging a teddy bear that her grandmother had gotten for her when she was eleven years old and could not sleep due to the heavy rainfall and thunderstorms that had struck at that time. She cried herself to sleep wishing her grandmother was here and maybe she would have been wiser in choosing who to love as her grandmother would have been there to guide her, like always.

The next morning Delilah got up with a massive headache due to all the crying she had done last night. Delilah had never been the type to have heavy hangovers over drinking. At times she would get headaches other times she wouldn’t and that was all. She also had a very high tolerance for alcohol but yesterday was beyond her drinking level. She got up and went back to her room and rummaged through to get aspirin for her headache as for her heart, there’s not to tell if it would stop aching. She wished she had painkillers that could heal the pain of a heartbreak but since there were none she had to cope with the pain for now.

She had come here with the intention of distancing herself from all the pain and taking a break from everything. But that did not work anytime she was idle memories kept flowing back of the incidents of the past that had broken her. So she decided to tidy up the house. She cleaned all over the house and went ahead to do laundry of her grandmother’s clothes and folded them back as she always does anytime she comes over. After she was done she went over to bake though she was not in the mood for eating she needed to keep her mind busy unless she wanted to travel down the path of her past memories. She prepared all the ingredients and decided to bake cookies and some Malva pudding just like her grandmother had taught her.

Delilah had left her assistant and the board members in charge of everything regarding the management of the agencies while she had left Jacob in charge of running the casinos operations since he had several shares there but Delilah owned majority of the shares. She wished her grandmother was around to see her big achievements. All her dreams she had shared with her grandmother and she had encouraged her through everything. She even had convinced her parents to let her partake business management, or so she thought, as it was the course she wanted to pursue while her mother had wanted her to pursue law. Her mother always wanted for Delilah to become a lawyer or a judge . But sadly those were not her dreams only her grandmother had supported her. And now she owned her own businesses all around the world. In the five years since her graduation she had ventured into the business world and everyone always talked about lady ‘D’ although not many new the face behind that name.

Her modelling agency which she had named in the memory of her grandmother was the talk of the world. From how it went from endorsing a figure below hundred of models to how it’s endorsing millions of models currently. KATLAH modelling agency had got every fashion house to their doorsteps for their models. She had chosen this name from her late grandmother.

She recalled that day that she had told her grandmother about her dream of running a modelling agency and owning a casino. Her grandmother had asked her about the names she would give the business and she had thought it as an easy question.

“Grandma of course I’ll name it after you my rock,” Delilah had answered quickly.

“Well if it were up to me I would like it to be a bit tricky for people to know. Let it be a puzzle for people to try and figure that name out. It should be unique. As for Kathrine I don’t think it’s all that.” Her grandmother had told her.

“Granny now am confused, how about we make a name both of us, help me find a suitable name for the place.” Delilah had told her grandmother.

“Okay so pick a notebook.” Delilah did as told. They suggested names all afternoon but non seemed to much their likes.

After a lot of pondering an idea struck Delilah’s head

“Grandma I got it since I want to name it after you and you suggested I name it after myself how about we merge our names,” Delilah said excitedly.

“Mmmmh! Kathrinedelilah,” her grandmother suggested

“Aah not that’s too long and they’ll know it’s from Kathrine and Delilah.”

“What about Bautistajones.”

“No still too long.”

This went on for a while until her grandmother told Delilah that finally she had gotten the perfect name no one will know what it represents .

“How about we merge the first letters of the word Kathrine with the last letters of Delilah.”

“Grandma you’re a genius let’s start with the first three letters.”

“Okay so that makes Katlah.”

“Not bad and also it’s not too long grandma it’s awesome.”

“How about the other name how about we merge the first letters of Delilah with the last letters of Kathrine. If it’s not cool we’ll just use the first one for the two places.”

“ which makes Deline.”

“Not bad but suppose we emit the letter D how would it look.”

“Eline , I suppose that could work too. It almost sounds like elite, exquisite.” Kathrine said while winking at her grand daughter.

“Grandma you’re the best now my businesses have unique names and I get to name them after you.” Delilah lashed to kiss her grandmother before dashing upstairs to her room while chanting how her grandmother is great. She had engraved this two names on her diary. She never forgot that day and those names. She had named her agency Katlah while the casino got to go by the name Eline.

Delilah had switched of her phone and she even deliberately did not charge her laptop to avoid being tempted to open her emails. All she wanted to do was be alone at the moment. Many could call it running away but she just wanted to recollect herself.

At times she got tempted to switch on her laptop and phone to see whether he had called her maybe he regretted his decision and wanted to apologize. Although deep down she knew it was impossible she still held that little hope and that was enough to get her not to switch any on as she could not handle another disappointment as of now. She decided to stay over until she could come to terms with her cruel fate.

After a week and some days Delilah decided to go for a walk around the beach. She saw a girl a couple of meters away the girl seemed to be in deep thoughts and the girl seemed to be crying as she had tears running down her face and it looked like she didn’t realize she was crying. Out of pure curiosity, instincts and wanting to help her Delilah approached her. And sat down next to the girl.

“Hey”

The girl seemed startled at first but she quickly recovered wiping away her tears using the back of her hand. Delilah offered her some tissue to wipe of the tears and she gladly took it while thanking Delilah.

“Rough day ha!” Delilah asked

“you can say that” the girl replied while trying to smile which turned out more to be a grimace.

“ Wanna talk about it, people say ranting your heart out to strangers is the best remedy as you don’t know each other and the possibility of meeting them again is minimum.” Delilah offered the girl. The girl seemed to think about it for a while before snorting in un girly way.

“ Is that so, well you can say that it’s relationship troubles.” The girl replied after minutes of thought..

“ yea relationship?” Delilah said in daze before quickly clearing her throat before continuing.

“ it depends , relationships have different problems.”

“ How about you say got dumped because I caught him cheating and decided to question him” the girl replied nonchalantly.

“ Well that’s one characteristics of being a coward he was unable to face you directly and give an explanation although that wouldn’t be enough for his cheating but at least he owed you that much. He was just too afraid for he knows he has nothing on you.” Delilah assured the girl and they fell in silence for a while before the girl stood up and dusted her dress before turning to Delilah.

“ I think so too.” With that she left but she didn’t know that she had just woken up Delilah’s memories. As Delilah was left in a daze recalling her old days.