Mistakenly Eaten

129. Will She Forgive Him?

Sitting by the edge of his bed, Salva tapped his feet restlessly, rocking his leg quite imperatively.

His condition screamed anxiety and worry.

Dark bags swell his eyes from over and underneath, giving him a more zombie look.

He got up and walked out of his room, once he noticed that slight rays of light had started to appear through the window of his room.

He didn’t care if it was too early in the morning. He was anxious throughout the whole night and he needed an answer to his concerns and worries.

He needed to see how Althea was doing.

He continued walking down the hall but paused when he Nick, sitting right outside Althea’s room.

His head was perched low and his legs extended out in front of him, as he rested his back against the wall opposite to the door to Althea’s room.

Salva sighed, realizing that Nick had spent the entire night outside Althea’s room, in case she would come out and he could get to talk to her.

He groaned in agitation and shook his head, walking towards his cousin.

He gently tapped his shoulder, perching down next to him and Nicholas immediately woke up with a shocked expression, moving his back away from the wall, ready to jump up on his feet and excited that Althea may have decided to give him a chance to talk but much to his dismay, it was just Salva.

“Oh! It’s you.” He stated, with obvious disappointment and threw himself back against the wall.

Salva scoffed, straightening up and sat parallel to him.

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

Nicholas only scoffed to Salva’s poor retortion.

“Do you think she will ever forgive me?”

Nick dejected tone was enough to tell how scared the man was.

The front buttons of his shirt were undone and his hair disheveled, he also seemed just as lost and broken as Salva, with heavy dark circles, encapsulating his eyes.

“Bro! if I could, I would wish to have a time machine, to go back in time and tell Althea that, she doesn’t need to worry about a thing in life because in the most unfortunate way but still, she would meet the best guy in the world, who would love her more than herself and would even take a bullet for her. despite of never having shot a bullet in his entire life and disappointing his father millions of times, the man would still kill someone for you and would love each and every single thing about you, he would give you love more than anything or anyone in the world and…”

The door to the room opened up with one vigorous jerk and Althea stood holding both sides of the door in each of her hand.

“You don’t have to narrate the entire story of our love to me.” She commented.

Her eyes were completely swollen and her nose and cheeks burned with crimson color. The middle of her upper lip was also plumped and her condition looked feeble, showing that she had been crying and weeping the entire night.

Nick and Salva both immediately got up to their feet and Althea let go off the door, opening it wide and open, gesturing it for either the two or at least one of them to come inside.

She turned around, hugging herself and walked to sit by the edge of the bed.

Nicholas immediately went after her and Salva held himself back.

He knew it was only appropriate to let Nicholas deal with Althea, in a matter that was going to be inclusively delicate for the two.

Althea stood by the door, that Nicholas closed behind him, as he entered the room.

He took a step towards her but paused when Althea took a step away from him.

She kept her hands intact over her arms, crossed across her body and her resistance was enough to show Nicholas that she was down to repel him at that moment.

He simply pulled himself away and walked further in to the room, sitting by the edge of the bed, his muscles still felt sore from sitting on the ground, outside Althea’s room throughout the whole night.

“I think that…”

“I know that…”

Both Althea and Nick spoke simultaneously but also immediately shut up, as the two realized that both of them had something to say to the other.

“Please go first.” Nick pushed her to speak first and Althea took in a deep breath, as she finally broke her silence.

“I think that I should go back.”

She spoke softly and a glacier of sorrow melted right over Nicholas’ heart who knew that sooner or later the required by Althea was meant to happen and it just did.

“Do you hate me, now?” he asked, with tears brimming in to his eyes and his head perched low, refusing to look up at Althea when she would tell him the truth.

“That’s the most confusing part.” She spoke softly as Nicholas felt his heart losing hope and his mind becoming feeble with every passing second.

“I thought that after last night, I was going to hate you but instead, I still love you and it just makes me question myself. How can I really love you?”

As she spoke those words, Nicholas could feel his wind pipes opening up a little bit, that got constricted the moment Althea demanded to leave.

He could feel his heart retrieving back its heartbeat and his other senses returning, as Althea confessed that she didn’t hate him, the way he assumed that she would.

“In fact, against my better self, I can not bring myself to hate you but I also can not stay here any longer. This place, it just… it hurts me so much to know that everything that I believed, lived and rejoiced on was nothing but a sham. I can not stay here any longer. I want to go back home.”

Althea confessed to Nicholas, who got up and looked at her fair and square.

“And what about us?”

Althea sighed, running a hand through her hair and tugging on to her strands. Her head already throbbed with pain and worry about what would be next for her and Nicholas but she could not bring herself to think even the slightest about anything, all the while she loathed the island and felt agitated by the thought of spending another night at that island.

“We both need to clear our heads and our minds. You told me that my food cured you and pulled you out of depression. Is it my cooking that you love or…”

“Of course, I love you…” Nicholas spoke up, a bit too irritated at Althea questioning his love. His voice was higher than the usual pitch he always had.

“Then how am I supposed to know that, when I just found out that everything I had believed for the past three months was a complete lie. I don’t even know who you really are.”

She argued back, raising her voice just as high as Nicholas’s.

“But the man that you loved was always honest to you about his feelings. I know I have lied to you about who I really am but I did not plan on hiding things from you. I bought the society so that I could get you to win the title for real.”

“Bought the society? Who the hell you really are?”

Nick chose to remain tacit at that question.

He couldn’t scare her anymore but telling her about who he really was.

“What is your real name?”

“You know my name and you know the man who loved you was always honest about his feelings. Yes, I lied to you because the conditions and the situation that we met in wasn’t the most ideal one but I never lied about my feelings to you.”

“I can not comprehend a thing at the moment, can’t you see how torn I am.”

Althea complained, refusing to understand Nicholas’s words and instead, demanded that she must be heard.

“But you just said that you are not torn about loving me.” Nicholas retorted back, still keeping his tone tough and pressing.

Their loud voices attracted everyone’s attention in the main foyer, who looked up the stairs and felt anxious.

Salva also joined everyone down in the foyer and felt just as worried as everyone else.

“Why is he arguing with her?” Fiona complained, “He will only make things worse. I will stop him and apologize to Althea. She doesn’t need someone to fight with her and instead, she just needs someone to apologize to her.”

With that she took a step ahead to go after Nicholas but Salva grabbed her arms and held her back, refusing to let anybody go up the stairs.

“It’s a personal matter between them.” Salva notified her.

“But she is also our friend and I also need to explain myself.” Fiona urged to be let go upstairs and have a talk with Althea.

“But it is more important to Nicholas. If his love can make her comprehend the situation and make her understand that the relationships that she created here with everyone were actually real, no matter how fake the entire set up was, nobody would be needed to push their point on Althea. Nick’s way might not be right but he is also afraid of losing Althea and people who are afraid of losing someone or something act desperate, out of rage and emotions. So, whatever Nick is doing right now, he is being the most honest he has ever been with Althea in the last few months. So, let the two be.”

As Salva finally apprehended Fiona and made his point go through her head, Andrew walked forward and grabbed his girlfriend, pulling her back and soothed her back.

Gigi walked up towards Salva and nudged his elbow in to his side.

“Do you think she will forgive him?” he asked Salva, who remained just an oblivious of the outcome of the matter as everyone else.

“Do we have a right to be mad at her, if she doesn’t?” he retorted back.

“There has to be a way in which she would calm down, to say the least?” Selena asked and Anthony only patted his daughter’s back.

“Whatever she asks for at the moment, should be given to her, or else things would only get worse.”

As Anthony put in his remarks, everyone felt extremely worried, that Nick’s constant bickering with Althea might make things worse for him.

Inside the bedroom, Nick walked up towards Althea and grabbed her arms, pulling her closer and in to him.

Althea held on to his shoulder and looked anywhere but his eyes, knowing damn well that the blue of his eyes was going to make her lose the last remaining bits of sanity inside her head.

“But what about everything else? What about the fact that I fell in love with you in a place where nothing was real?” she argued and Nicholas pressed her arms tightly, forcing her to look up at him.

“But what about our love? It is real, even if anything else is not, my love for you and yours for mine, that is the only real thing, that I also care about and I don’t want to lose you Althea.”

“Then come for me when I am Gragnano but you must let go off me now. Because staying here, I would not be able to absorb or understand anything. I want to go back to my life, where everything even miserable was at least real. And I loved my life here. I enjoyed the bliss that I lived through but it was all a hoax. Everything here was a set up and the euphoria that I lived in and was high at, thinking that I finally was able to make it, when it broke and crashed in to pieces, it broke me Nicholas. I am broken on the inside and I just want you to understand that right now, the only thing that would make me feel alright, is the slightest sense of reality and my reality is back in Gragnano, with my family in that small house that is smaller than the pantry of this mansion.”

Nick’s heart felt scathed by Althea’s words. She finally struck him with reality and made him realize that the two belonged to two completely different worlds.

“Nick! I don’t know who you really are. The man that I fell in love with, was someone I thought was normal, someone just like me. But you are someone who could have an entire set up orchestrated, buy large organizations with a single command, have so much at the tip of his fingers. Your reality is what scares me. You have known me and loved on this island. What if you don’t also love me beyond this place? Don’t you think we both need this assessment.”

“I don’t need anything to make myself believe that I love you. I know that I love you in all of your entirety.” Nick hissed at her, as he looked back at her, with rage fuming through his eyes.

Althea only scoffed at his words.

“You know everything about me, don’t you? You had a background check on me. Of course you did…”

She rolled her eyes, as more tears fell down her cheeks and the twisted fatality of her own mindset began removing the layers of reality that she was trying to preserve.

“See Nick! This is what is going to happen to me if you don’t let me go now. I will only keep getting more and more hurt, as I would not be able to understand you or anything and then I will do everything to hurt you, so that you could feel the slightest of my pain.”

“I can feel your pain…”

He gently reached out for her face and wiped a tear off with his thumb, cupping her cheek in his warm palm.

“And I know I am the reason behind it. I couldn’t help it. this is exactly what I feared as well and that’s why, even I continued living in a euphoria. I know I shouldn’t have done this but I have come to learn this the hard way that I love you and I can not live with out you. It is killing me to see you in this misery and this is exactly why I continued lying, so that you wouldn’t feel this miserable. I never intended on hurting you and I was going to tell you the truth in some part of our lives but I just wanted to love you and give you every single happiness that I could. I want to give you the world Althea and not have your eyes shed a single tear ever again. I want to hurt myself for being the reason behind your cries and your pain…”

Althea closed her eyes, as she felt in a moment of complete misery.

A part of her wanted to stay with Nicholas but a much more sensible part of her, reminded her that she needed to get back to reality and then see where things would go further on and apart from Nicholas and she would get to at least comprehend the idea of him and be able to digest his reality, in a much more realistic environment.

“I know you love me and I love you too but I have to go now…”

The words broke both of their hearts as the realization that Althea was right, was too heavy for both of them to swallow and accept.

Nicholas broke their touch and pulled himself apart, turning his face away from Althea and ran his hands through his hair.

“I am not going to stay away from you. I can’t. I will come for you.”

“Maybe, I want you to.”

She told him, making him turn around.

“This is not the end, Althea.” He said those words, mostly trying to tell the truth to his own self.

“No, it is actually me begging for a real start.”

“Fine! if you think that it is the best for you…”

“For both of us.” She added, making sure to keep her point redundantly included in the matter.

Nick only sighed, as he tried to absorb Althea’s words and tried his very best to understand her and her needs.

He had done things his way so far and if Althea was demanding that for once, things should be done and molded in a way that would satisfy her, than Nick was willing to bend and snap just for the sake of her peace.

With a heavy stone on his heart, Nick took in a deep breath as he finally announced his decision out loud.

“Okay, then! I will let you go.”

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Do you think Althea made the right choice?

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