Mistakenly Eaten

117. Finding Althea

Fiona sat inside on her bed, next to Andrew, who held her hand and kept on comforting her.

Fiona was still in complete shock by having witnessed not just Salva and Nicholas’s fight but feeling betrayed by the fact that she shared all of her heartfelt feelings and every personal detail with Althea and the other girl simply did not reciprocate her actions.

Fiona didn’t know whether she was doleful or incensed by Althea’s actions but she was definitely clamored by finding out about Nick and Althea in such a horrendous manner.

“Fiona, I think you should try and at least talk to Althea…” Andrew spoke up but Fiona immediately shut him down.

“Andrew, please right now I do not need you to tell me to the right thing. I am mad, so let me be…”

A knock on the door startled Fiona out of her rant and Andrew got up from next to Fiona, walking ahead and opened up the door.

Garry stood in the doorframe, taking both Andrew and Fiona by surprise.

Both the two men had not come face to face after their little clash over Fiona in the kitchen, but now standing square and next to one another, the two men only realized how awkward the situation seemed to be between the two.

“Is Fiona here?” Garry asked with a heavy heart, as he felt a ting of pain and jealousy in his heart the moment he found Andrew opening up the door to Fiona’s room.

Andrew also on the other hand felt uncertain, wondering why Garry was asking for his girlfriend.

“Yeah…” hesitantly, he took a step aside and Garry found Fiona, standing right in the middle of the room.

“Garry? What do you want?” she asked, plain and straight and sensing her harsh tone that she had developed towards him, only pained Garry even more but he also knew that he could not expect her to treat him the same way, before she had her eyes opened up towards his masticating behavior.

“Did you talk to Althea?” he asked, taking a step inside the room and Andrew sighed, shaking his head at Garry’s question.

“Oh, she did not and won’t.” Andrew spoke up, making Garry look at him in confusion.

“What do you mean, she won’t?”

“I told her that she should at least talk to Althea and…”

“Why should I? so, that she could lie to me more about her and Nick? While I told her everything about me and Andrew? Gosh! I feel so stupid and…”

“Wait! That’s why you won’t talk to her?” Garry asked her and then turned back towards Andrew, who shrugged in utter disbelief.

“Ugh!” Garry groaned, throwing his head back.

“How childish can you actually be Fiona?” Garry rose the question and Andrew sighed in relief that finally someone said the words that he couldn’t.

“Thank you!” Andrew shrugged his hands, throwing them up in the air and then brought them together as a cross over his chest.

“I can’t believe it, you two are ganging up against me.” Fiona complained, making Garry snort a little.

“Gosh! I only wonder how you deal with her.” he looked at Andrew, who remained indifferent.

“Well, I love her. so, that’s on that.”

Garry couldn’t help but laugh a little, as he realized that Andrew was indeed completely smitten by the girl.

“Fiona, do you ever even plan on growing up?”

Fiona knitted her eyebrows, as she felt confused over Garry’s words.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you making a mature decision to leave me and be with Andrew, was actually not yours. Was it? It was Althea’s decision, right? She had a big influence on your mind and emotional health and really helped you mature up and that’s why you are pissed off at her because her decision to have Nick in her life did not include your influence, like hers did. She matters to you, so why are you acting like a d**k, especially when she needs a friend.”

“Didn’t she need a friend when she was lying underneath Nick?” Fiona felt grossed out at that thought and Andrew stepped in this time.

“Fiona, you need to understand that Althea’s situation is different than yours. In her perspective things are entirely different and completely something else, comparted to what we know and how we think.”

“But she still could tell me at least something. She gave me zero idea and I am pretty sure that this thing between her and Nick had been going on for a while. It only irritates me that she did not even give me the slightest hint or idea. I get it, she might be thinking that she is not supposed to tell anyone about dating the director but it only proves that for her, my friendship doesn’t mean anything. She doesn’t consider me a friend and…”

“Oh for f**k’s sake.” Garry intervened in between her monologue of regressive crying and ranting about how she was the victim in the entire situation.

“You can not possibly think that you are the victim here.” Garry word took Fiona by complete surprise, making her shut up in the midst of her rant.

“What? How can you even be so rude and…”

“Have you been entirely honest with Althea? Have you actually told her how everyone at the island is making a complete fool out of her and how we are taking advantage of her innocence?”

As Garry’s words left his mouth, they hit Fiona’s heart, hard and heavy.

She had not realized the entire truth and had not paid much attention to what the situation truly was.

Sensing her silence, Garry only scoffed hard.

“Yeah! I figured that you’d go silent, when the tables would turn to your direction. Doesn’t that feel nice to be appeased for once. You were quick, very quick to poke your pitchfork in to Althea’s direction. But did you try to be empathetic towards her even for once, just like she was towards you? How could you even be so insensitive. The girl is away from her family and friends and it was already hard for her and she felt vulnerable many times, trying to find a new home and a new family here on an isolated island. And she did so. She found friends in you and Salva and love in Nick. But now she is all alone. How is that supposed to make her feel? Maybe, if her heart makes her frown in anxiety and fret over the fact that she should not have trusted people, who would turn against her, in moments she would need them the most. Don’t you ever feel such way?”

Fiona fell tacit, having no reciprocation to Garry’s words.

“Exactly! I knew you would not have any answer. Grow the f**k up Fiona and go and talk to Althea. She needs a friend more than anything at this moment.”

With that Garry stormed out of the room and Andrew went after him.

“Garry wait!”

He called him out in the corridor, making him turn around and look at the man, who could be defined as his rival in love but who was Garry kidding, he could never compete with Andrew and his smooth and sensitive ways of showing love.

If anything Garry had always learned to rough it up, having it come to him from his older brother and his father and that’s why he dove in to other activities like cooking, which helped him keep his soft side intact but who was he kidding. Andrew was someone, who had learned how to love and how to give, Garry could never compete with him in that context.

“I know what you might think of me. You may think that I am perfect for Fiona, someone who can give her all the love but honestly, that is all I am good for.” Andrew’s words muddled Garry, who looked at the skinny man, wanting him to complete his words, so Garry would be able to understand him in clarity.

“And Fiona can act a bit spoiled and childish at times. And I am not complaining but she also needs someone who can help her understand life at different points be a little tough on her. and for that, I guess you would make the perfect contestant.”

Garry scoffed, as he understood Andrew.

“So, you want me to be the d**k?”

“Weren’t you already? that’s how she knows you. Maybe she sees you as an authoritative figure but what I really mean is that she wants you in her life as well, Garry. Despite of what she says or thinks…”

“And you’re okay with it?” He asked, wanting to see if Andrew would show any signs of jealousy or envy but the guy remained cool, as he shrugged and nodded.

“Fiona’s told me everything. Including what happened between the two of you at the night of the storm, when Nick saved Althea for the first time and she slapped him back. But all I know is that I love Fiona and I trust her. I love her beyond any questioning. I trust in my own love and know that she also loves me and appreciates me enough to understand what kind of boundaries she wants to and should set with you. I can not impose my demands on her and she can not do the same. But at the same time, I can understand what she needs and what not. So, she may not say this but I know that she still needs you in her life. Just like now. She wouldn’t go and talk to Althea when I asked her to because she views me as a equal but you, you are somewhat of a daunting figure for her. So, your presence not only helps me but me as well.”

With that Andrew threw one last smile at Garry and left, who did nothing but cursed the bastard for being so mature and loving so hard and rightly. Garry realized that no one could be a better option for Fiona than Andrew and if Fiona really looked up at him as an advisor, he would surely advise the girl to never let go off that guy. Because no one could love her more, not even Garry himself.

As Garry and Andrew parted their ways, Fiona finally made her way towards Althea’s room, realizing that the two men were actually right and she needed to be mature for once and understand Althea’s position as well. She should look beyond herself and sympathize with Althea and be there for her like a true, selfless friend who would do anything for the sake of friendship.

But when she reached her room, she found it entirely empty. At first, she waited for about fifteen minutes in the bedroom, assuming that Althea might be in the washroom or in the closet but something sinisterly seemed to settle in her heart as she heard no sound coming from either the bathroom or the closet.

She first checked in the closet and found it empty and then knocked on the washroom door but did not hear anything in return.

“Althea… are you in there?”

When Fiona did not heard any answer in response, she decided to open the door of the bathroom, worried that something might had happened to Althea inside the bathroom but finding the door unlocked made her even more suspicious. Once she checked the bathroom and realized that Althea was not even in her room, Fiona could tell that something out of the conspicuous was about to happen.

She immediately ran out of the room and began searching and surfing through the entire house. One by one, Fiona searched the entire mansion, even checking in to Nick’s office and bedroom. Finding the two to be empty was a big alarm and having no idea whom to turn for help, she rushed towards Salva’s room and found both Nick and Salva inside the room.

She was huffing with exhaustion, having run out of breath, sprinting from corner of the house to another, when she finally announced and broke the news to Salva and Nick that Althea was missing.

Nick did not stay back to listen to a single word that Fiona might had to offer and simply dashed out of the room. Running right ahead to check in the surveillance room where Althea might have gone.

Whilst Salva and Fiona made their way together back to Althea’s room.

“I had come to check and see if she may have come to you to talk or something. Because I couldn’t find her in the entire house.” Fiona told Salva, who was completely torn and still shaken from Althea’s sudden disappearance.

“When was the last time you saw her?” Salva asked Fiona, trying to collect any clues or hints.

“This morning in the main garden when she showed up after you and Nick fought and left the scene. She seemed very guilty and completely distorted. Gosh! I hate myself, I should’ve done or said something.”

Fiona ran a finger through her hair, as her heart fell full of regret.

As the two walked towards the woman in question’s room, the moment Salva opened up the door to Althea’s room, he knew that something obstreperous was going on and about in that room.

The uncreased linen on the bed and the perfectly made up décor of the bed, showed it quite evidently that the bed was made up before the owner or the resident of the room had exited the premises.

He then went towards the closet and noticed that everything was arranged perfectly and neatly.

He went through each and every compartment and finally realized that the backpack that was the only thing that Althea brought with him was gone, while everything else was arranged perfectly well and left behind by Althea, who took nothing but her own belongings with her.

“Salva.”

Fiona called him out from outside the closet, still standing inside the bedroom.

Salva rushed out to find three envelopes in her hands, with her eyes glistened, as she looked up at Salva.

He walked up towards Fiona and grabbed those envelopes, with each having Salva. Nicholas and Fiona’s names written on it, signifying which letter was addressed to which entity.

Salva sighed in exhaustion, as he passed the rest of the two to Fiona and grabbed his own, tearing it apart and opening it up.

He immediately took out his letter and began reading it. it was brief, not quite lengthy but quite commensurate enough to let one know that the girl had simply delivered her point through and through.

‘Salva, I am sorry if I ever hurt you. I did not mean to deceit you or make you or Nick fall apart. I never meant to come in between you and you might be hateful towards me, that for the first time, Nick had to hid something from you because of me. I came between the two of you, complicating things and pushed Nick in to a tough spot, where I made him lie to you but neither of us planned on hurting you. The best thing in my opinion is that I should not make things more complicated and put Nicholas’s position in any more danger. He once told me how much you love him and care for him and if I am being the reason why you two are fighting, it’s better that I, move out and away from the two of you. This title and this competition are important for me but not at the cost of ruining relationships. I hope you find it in your heart to ever forgive me. Goodbye…’

The moment Salva was done reading his letter, he threw on the bed and dashed out of the room, screaming out loud and in exhaustion “Where could she possibly go?”

He asked Garry who stood in the main foyer, holding a walkie talkie headset in his hand, that he used to communicate with the other guards that Nicholas had spread all around the island, to make sure to get Althea before she could go anywhere either near the north west section where the other supposedly eliminated contestants were already being kept. They had also sent a wireless to the harbor, where Peter Junior was also awaiting Althea to see when will she show up.

“She’s not at the harbor, which means that she might have gone to take another direction.” Garry informed Salva, who shrugged in sheer confusion.

“What? Does she plan to swim out of the island?” he rose the question in concern, rubbing the back of his head.

He heard loud footsteps jumping down the staircase behind him and as he turned around he found Fiona rushing towards him.

“The boats on the east coast of the island…” Fiona yelled out loud, suddenly remembering the corner of the island where she once took Althea and the two saw two small speedboats latched dully on the land and Fiona informed Althea that they were kept there for the sake of emergencies only and were rarely ever used by anyone.

“f**k!”

Both Salva and Garry retorted at the same time and Garry immediately began speaking in to his headset.

“How does she even know about those boats?” he asked Fiona, who stood just as anxious as everyone around the house, as she fiddled her fingers together.

“We once were wandering about the island and ended up at that part…” she murmured lowly and at the same time, Martha and Selena also joined her upstairs, as they were also informed of the entire commotion.

“What is going on? What is happening? Did they find Althea yet?” Selena asked, jumping down the stairs, leaving her mother behind to console Fiona who kept on weeping and as she slid against the top railings of the staircase and Martha bent down, patting her head softly and pulling her in for a hug, feeling responsible herself for the entire scene, since she was the one who had asked Althea to leave to begin with.

“I shouldn’t have been so tough on the poor girl.” Martha cursed herself and Fiona cried, shaking her head indecisively.

“I should’ve been a better friend.”

At the same time, Salva called Nick out, grabbing the headset from Garry’s hands and speaking in it with aggression, as he sprinted himself out of the house.

“Nick! The speed boats on the east coast.”

Nick stood in the surveillance room, with Gigi and Anthony, where the three went towards the footage on different cameras, rewinding them and replaying them to see when Althea left but the thousands of the seconds of clips, was not proving to be efficient at that moment, since no one knew at what time had Althea actually left.

Everyone had been cramped inside their rooms with their own thoughts for the past several hours, not even realizing that the evening had set upon the island and it was beginning to get ultra dark already.

As the headset with Salva’s voice vibrated, Nick felt alarmed and grabbing the headset, Nick immediately stormed out of the surveillance room and made his way towards the said destination hoping that he would find Althea and stop her before she would leave the island. Because there was no way he was ever going to let her go.

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Do you think Nick would be able to stop Althea?

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