Away to love

Chapter 2iii

“Don’t you dare curse in my presence, young lady! You need to leave? I need to concentrate.”

“Keep running away from me every time I try to bring this up. How are you a Christian and you cannot forgive? Your father in heaven has forgiven you, but to forgive your own blood daughter is allegedly a crime? I feel so ashamed of you. The poor girl needs you, and you’re nowhere to be found, or do you think she has not learned from her mistakes? I hate you so much”, Sweden cried as she walked out of the room.

“She’s getting back her karma for disobeying me and running away with the stupid young lad,” Their father yelled back as he watched Sweden walk out.

Honestly, he did miss his child, his sweetheart. He sat and gave it some thought. Chills ran down his spine as he remembered how she disobeyed him and left.

Children! They can be so disobedient at times. They had a very strong bond. Was he willing to let go of the past and welcome his daughter into his arms?

He had to put on this countenance so that his sister, Sweden, would know better. He also did not want her to run off with a young boy and to come back later to apologize. He wanted to instill fear into Sweden and one of the ways he could do this was to be stern and strict.

“My beautiful Nina, I miss you so much,” he quietly lamented under his breath.

It was almost noon when Nina woke up. She felt pain in the side of her body. She woke up feeling very weak and hungry. She sat up and stretched her arms for some time. She wanted blood to flow properly in them as they started to feel numb. She touched her forehead and hoped she was not going to get sick this time. “I need some medication,” she murmured to herself.

There’s no one that would not fall sick after crying the tears she had cried these past few days. She stood up and walked to her reading table. By the side, was a box, a box containing medicine. She reached inside of it, took some pills and put them in her mouth. " This should soothe the pain,'' she thought. She took the wipes on the table and wiped her face. She made to exit the room. She was mad and hungry. She felt too lazy to cook, so she just wanted to take a walk to the restaurant that was down the road and grab a quick plate. She entered the restaurant and grabbed a seat. She was welcomed very well by a waitress working there.

“ Hi dear, you are welcome here. Is everything okay? You don’t look too good. Have you been crying? ” “No, I have not.”

“ You can always talk to me? Your eyes look puffy. I will listen carefully, I promise. ”

“ My belly just hurts badly. I need to eat. I'd been starving and I did not have the strength to cook something for myself.”

She was not friends with the waitress that worked at the restaurant. The waitress was a nice person. She would greet and crack jokes from time to time whenever she saw Nina, because she lived block away from the building. She felt glad that there was even someone that wanted to listen to her.

Nina was a very shy person and it made it very difficult for her to make friends.

The Waitress was named Miranda and she was Japanese. She came back to where Nina sat with a tray filled with burgers and fries. In it was also some vanilla smoothie with some cheesecake by the side.

“Thank you,” Nina gladly said as she eyed her meal hungrily. She began to eat. For some time, the food took all the thinking away. Now all she could focus on was curing her hunger. She wanted to stop all these worries and go back to being her old self.

Miranda stood where she was as she watched Nina very closely. She knew all was not well. She waited for other customers too, but still eyed Nina from time to time. She wished Nina would confide in her.

She had always admired Nina secretly. She had worked in a high-end boutique before coming here and she didn’t need an Angel to tell her that Nina had somehow touched wealth before. She admired and envied her beauty, her eyes, her hair, skin and everything.

She stood and stared patiently, waiting for Nina to finish eating before she could say a word to her. She thought she was a bit mosey, but she was very sure all was not well with her.

Nina sluggishly ate the food. No matter how much she tried to focus, she could not, as it seemed, her mind replayed the last few days to her. Her head was very full and she could not stop being anxious.

She had made a promise to herself and to Sweden that she was going to be strong. At this point, she needed stability and all the love she could get. She already had her mom and Sweden, but she also needed her father and, most importantly, a lover!

Nina had always loved her father. He was the true definition of a girl's dad. She loved him more than anything in this world and there was nothing anybody could say. They had a father-daughter bond.

“You sleep off Ma’am?” Miranda said as she softly tapped Nina on the shoulders. Miranda could not properly speak English. It wasn’t long after she moved from Japan to the USA so she still struggled with speaking.

She smiled shyly at Miranda as she took the fries from her plate and threw them into her mouth.

“You would like to talk to me?”

“What?”

“I can help you if you are ready to share your pain,” Miranda offered.

Nina kept her burger down and looked at Miranda before she opened her mouth to speak.

“ If you don’t talk to someone, then you keep the pain. You never know who might help ” Miranda said as she looked away.

“ Miranda, it’s really nothing. I am just really exhausted with life. Trying to push my career. I haven’t lived alone in a long time and doing everything, alone, with a grieving heart is very exhausting. I am just tired! ”

Sarah let out a sharp laugh that left Nina very confused. “ This is not fun. Why the hell are you laughing? ”

“ So you’ve been slowly entering depression and you have not talked to anybody about it? What about your mom?”

“ I have told you. It has not changed anything, but I feel a little bit of relief that I get to share my pain with someone I do not know. ” Nina said as she took a sip from her smoothie.

“ Well dear, if you did not know it? I have always liked you. I am not happy to see you in such a state”

“Wow! That is great to know. If I may ask? Why?”

“Because I think you are a very beautiful woman,” Miranda laughed.

“I do not see myself as a woman. You think I am strong, but I see myself as someone who has failed,” Nina shockingly said.

“This must be because someone has made you hate yourself. I want you to take this. ” Miranda said as she reached out from her apron, took a piece of paper and gave it to Nina.

“Take this paper and open it when you get home. It’s the number of the person that gave me my former job. I worked in a nice place before, you know. With your beauty and smartness, he will hire you.”

“What kind of job is this?”

“ When you work there you see fancy ladies and men like you. You do not stay in your house crying again. You meet people and you feel happy,” Miranda happily said.

“Miranda, thank you very much, but I don’t think this is for me, you need it more than I do” Nina said.

“ You see, you do not believe in yourself. You keep doubting and you keep talking down on yourself. Try. If you do not need to, you can come back and return to me. I need to follow up with my customers. My number is the one on the paper, you will call me. ”

“God bless you Miranda, I feel so happy. Thank you for motivating and helping me.” She said as she cleaned the tears that tried to come through.

“I care about you, friend,” she said as she went ahead to take another customer's order.

Nina finally finished her meal. She walked out of the restaurant and headed back to her house. She thought of all the things Miranda had said to her. The one that struck a nerve the most was her telling her to stop saying she did not believe in herself. Miranda had a short life but seemed so happy, contented and motivated.

She heaved as she took the paper. Miranda opened it and copied the number that was in bold. She copied Miranda’s number as well and saved it differently . She submitted a form with the number and crossed her fingers that things would be different .

In less than thirty minutes, she passed the test and an email was sent to her. The review she applied to was approved and she needed to show up the next day for an interview in the office.

She literally felt cold running through her spine. She was shocked. She encouraged herself and told herself she was stronger than what was in front of her and still went ahead to do it anyway. She pushed her laptop to the side and laid on her bed holding the pink plushie Josh gave her on Valentines after they got married. She hugged it tight.