Every person has a story behind their scars and every single one of us had them, be it that they rest on our skin or on our heart, so it's pointless to go around judging people without knowing them.
I was stunned, silence revolted around me. With each step I got to know Blake I became more and more surprised from the outcome of my curiosity.
My lips parted trying to voice out something, but no words came out as I finally understood his words. Max and Melissa, they were once engaged! Surely, when I looked at them, they bickered like a real couple, but I could never guess that they would have been engaged in the past. My mind stopped as I recalled Blake mentioning how Lucas had to do something with it. Did he stop the wedding or something?
"What? When?" was all I could ask for now. The longer I stayed with Blake, the more I came to understand why he acted the way he did, why he was so distant and cold with his family.
Why I couldn't read him.
Was I also about to unravel the mystery behind his hatred for Lucas? Blake wasn't some rich spoiled guy I thought he was when we first met. He was normal, he suffered and he was telling me about that suffering despite it being painful. He seemed like an adult, keeping his distance, but also being unable to hold back from grasping light and getting involved with people dear to him.
He said that he had a bad relationship with his family, but he was also someone who'd simply sit down with them on the same table, play around and act spoiled when happy.
He was only a man of flesh and blood, not some unattainable idol.
I only now noticed that the light was off in his study. I couldn't understand why it hadn't bothered me when I first came in. He's probably been working on his laptop for so long that he hadn't even noticed when the night fell. I smiled. Even without light in this huge room, you could perfectly see the environment due to the lights from the outside and moonlight breaking through the windows. It seemed so peaceful, but I knew that there was more than meets the eye.
Darkness that once seemed so peaceful was about to engulf us, I already knew that this conversation of ours wasn't going to be some nice chitchat. And for some reason, the sole thought of having it with Blake brought chills to my skin. Blake rarely spoke of his past. No, he avoided talking about it. But now, he chose not to run away.
"When Melissa was eighteen, and Max twenty, it was seven years ago," Blake began to tell the tale that almost seemed like a dream. He was simultaneously looking my way, carefully observing my face. "They were a high school couple, you could say. Max even stayed to repeat a year just so that he could remain by her side while she skipped a grade. You'd be surprised at what he was like back then. I think that our high school didn't know of any bigger delinquent than him," he chuckled and I smiled at this newfound information. I could already imagine macho Max as a school's playboy and shy Mel despite how odd it seemed.
Max was rather nice now, cool and composed while the wild look was more suited for Melissa who went around provoking fights with everyone. They did sound cute. I would've loved to have met their younger selves.
"Everyone thought that they were going to get married and he proposed to her on her eighteenth birthday." His smile dropped as he returned the sandwich he was eating back on the plate. This conversation made him lose his appetite, and if I knew one thing about Blake, that's that he never wasted his food. "She said 'yes' and everyone was happy about it. Everyone but Lucas!" The way he said his father's name with such hatred made my skin freeze so much that I wanted nothing more but to crawl in some far corner and hide. He didn't hide his hatred for Lucas. I was familiar with this emotion. At one moment I even began to think that I didn't want to know. But I knew that I had to. I had to know if I truly wanted to understand Blake.
"What did . . ." Somewhere in the middle of our conversation, my lips moved on their own as I asked, knowing well that there was no more turning back.
"He pulled out the same stunt as now." Blake breathed in and out, like a predator ready to pounce on the target while trying to restrain its presence in order not to scare away his prey. It was hunger. Hunger for destruction, hunger for revenge. "The same as when he arranged my marriage to Regina. He strongly believed in uniting our companies with it. Waltzer Company, you can guess whom it belongs to." I watched him cover his eyes as he leaned back on the sofa we were sitting on. I could see his muscles flex as he gripped and released his fists a few times with long breaths in between. But the veins that seemed like they were about to burst from under his skin made it clear just how angry he was underneath this restrained calmness.
He was trying not to scare, and in a normal situation this would have made me blush. But I knew that this wasn't our normal situation, knowing the reason behind his current actions, I just couldn't spare admiration for him.
"So Melissa's husband was . . ." I waited for him to continue. I couldn't understand myself. While I found myself not wanting to push him, my lips constantly urged him to unravel more about himself. And that utterly confused and terrified me at the same time. I wondered if he'd get angry at me because of it?
"Regina's older brother, Ethan." Blake said his name clearly, not angered by my questions, which what I was thankful for. "He was Max's rival in high you know, two players from rich families. And he was also bullying Mel all the time, he hated her for no apparent reason. Or no, maybe he knew that she was his future wife so he tried to get his anger out on her. I don't know. I cannot understand neither him nor that scum of my father!" How could their father arrange a marriage to such a person, especially to someone his daughter had a horrible past with. She probably hated Ethan or was even terrified of him because of his actions, yet her father didn't even take her feelings into consideration.
"Since he was the oldest, he was the next CEO of Waltzer Company. So guess what, our dear, loving father arranged their marriage against her will." Although I knew it, it still hurt to hear it come so clear from his lips. "That bastard abused her every fucking day in their marriage. For fuck's sake, he raped her every day!" His breathing trembled as I watched his fists clench until all color drained from them. As much as his behavior scared me, I knew that it would've hurt him much more if I were to run away. Especially now that he was finally opening up to me, now that the final pieces of the puzzle came together.
"He died in a car accident four months later. Melissa almost went through the miscarriage because of the beating she got from him and Lucas never gave a damn about it!"
I couldn't take it. I thought I was ready to face it, yet I was weak. It broke my heart. I took his hands to calm him down. I sat on his lap before landing my lips on his fists, trying to somehow remind him that we're in the present now, not the past. Even though I was trying, in the deafening silence of his study, I could still hear his loud and fast heartbeat. He was far from calming down, yet I took my time. I couldn't give up. Most of the time, I would be the one being confronted, especially that day when I told him about my parents. It was different. We were different people, but I knew. We were both blaming ourselves for our pasts.
"It was not your fault." I told him what he needed to hear, which was the truth, yet he shook his head.
"It was. I was too busy trying to pull the company back on its feet that I hadn't even noticed what was going on with my own family. Max had it worse. After her rejection, he suffered. When he found out about Melissa, God. He loved her so much that he didn't even care that she was pregnant with someone else. He tried to save her baby at all costs. He even chose his profession so that he could make it. He knew the physical shock it would've been for her to lose her baby. She constantly feared that her baby was not going to make it, yet Max studied so hard and made sure she knew that everything was going to be okay. He stayed by her side until the very end." Blake continued and before I could even realize what was going on, tears formed in my eyes. I did that a lot as of lately.
"And Lucas?" I threw away the title of his father the moment I found out about his deeds. "What did he do when he found out?" I asked, darkness seemed to completely swallow Blake's face. He let out a dry chuckle as his eyes carried gloom as if they never knew of light, of joy. Only hatred. Pure, raging hatred. Just like the bottom of the ocean that was swiped by a typhoon. Those eyes wanted to swallow everything.
"Nothing. He knew well what was going on, yet he didn't give a damn about it. He firmly believed that our company was going to fall apart and the only way out was their marriage, so he turned a blind eye to it. We all found out too late. The car accident happened when he tried to escape the police. Melissa was taken to the hospital when the miscarriage almost happened and she couldn't hide the reason behind her state." As he finished, I felt my heartbeat speed up. Unknowingly, my body shook and my lips trembled. I couldn't believe that something so terrible happened to my friend. To that bright and positive Melissa.
"She was being threatened by him to keep quiet. Her bruises were never in visible places. We couldn't know, but I should've known. I'm her older brother. I fucking should've noticed!"
I tried to comfort him, but he was faster. He was hugging me tightly, embracing me while I cried on his chest. I didn't even know why nor when I started to cry, he had the right to cry more than I did. Now I understood his hatred for Lucas. His words that his family ruined Melissa. The safe houses he mentioned to me. Why he was so adamant on building those safe houses. His sister was one of those abused women, I now understood everything.
"It took as a whole three years to get our Mel back. Thanks to Max, she is even stronger than before and she has a healthy baby girl now. I know that they still love each other. Everyone can see it clearly in their eyes, but I guess that she's simply too scared to start a new married life now, and no one's pushing her." I could understand that. I thought that my past was unbearable, but suddenly I learned of Melissa's. We each have our misfortunes. We all have our pains.
I was afraid of sleeping with Blake again, but she . . . She was afraid to have happiness in her life, to get married again.
"But it's so hard on Max, you know. He never stopped loving her." Blake was telling me their story and I made sure to take in every single information, to acknowledge their tale even if I may pretend like I never heard about it. That sad smile I could see here and there on Max's face was true, I was never overthinking things. He loved Melissa, and it's precisely because of that he made sure that he gave her the space she needed. He was willing to wait. He never took interest in other women because he waited. He hoped that he'd be with her again.
"I still remember how broken he was when she returned him the engagement ring and said that she couldn't marry him 'because she didn't love him like that,' which my father told her to do." By now, my tears could no longer remain silent. Sobs full of pain left my lips as he closed his eyes, hiding his own suffering. She loved him even after all this time, I could only imagine how hard it was for her to say no to a person she loved, probably wholeheartedly.
I could never do that to Blake, it would hurt me much more now that I knew his feelings. I loved him, but I feared telling him, yet I knew that I had to say it as soon as possible. One could never know what tomorrow brings, the same was with me, with him, with Mel and Max. The same went for everyone. When you love, you should tell that to your loved ones while you still have a chance, because once they're gone, no matter how loud you scream or hard you cry, they won't be able to hear your voice.
"Why are you crying, I'm the one that should be doing that, you're supposed to be the one confronting me?" Blake asked, trying to lighten up the atmosphere but I couldn't stop. Suddenly the room didn't seem so dark as it was before, and I noticed that his heartbeat was somewhat back to normal, now that my head was tightly pressed on his chest. That was right, he was the one supposed to cry, but he didn't.
Blake never seemed like he could allow himself to cry.
"It's because you won't cry, that I'm the one doing it instead!" I probably sounded like a wreck at the moment, but I couldn't stop or hide my feelings like what he told me didn't affect me at all. My cries seemed to get even worse as I tried to talk. "And because of two of them. They had such a horrible past, they didn't deserve it!" My tears have long ago overflowed. It was useless to hold them back and I didn't care. I felt like this was the only right thing to do at the moment and it was surprisingly okay with me.
"Yeah, and that's all in the past. You can see why I acted that way when I found out about that marriage offer," This was his grim reply, and I knew that he was trying to hide how much he was actually hurt for my sake, but I didn't want that. I didn't want him to hide things, to not have anyone to confide in. For that reason, I openly cried before him. He didn't need to be brave or act tough around me. It was more than enough if he decided to stay by my side. I loved his playful side, I loved his passion, I loved the way he cared, I loved him for being himself.
"You have no idea just how much I want to kill that bastard!" He sighed as his arms relaxed before moving from my back. I immediately started missing the warmth they gave me as he moved them by his side.
But even after telling me all that, something seemed off, like he was trying to hide some details from me.
Lucas.
Before I found out about Mel, Blake said that Lucas had something to do with Marine's death, and his reaction was pretty much the same as the one he currently showed me. Could it be that she was also dragged into this story? Could it be that . . . ?
"Blake, there was something else you're not telling me, right?" His eyes widened before he took a sharp breath. I gulped. I immediately noticed that it was not something meant to be talked about.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to. I just let my tongue move faster than my own mind. Forget about it, please," I nervously rambled, but he only left a lifeless chuckle, the same as the one from earlier. Just what had happened to him, how deep did his grudge for Lucas go?
"I told you that you were smart after all," he said, but I did not want to be smart right now, not at all. "Mel was simply a backup plan, you could call it like that. That bastard, that's how low he thought of our family!" No, no, it couldn't be that he had done what I thought he did. I shook my head in disbelief. "Before he arranged Mel's marriage, he had arranged my twin sister's, Marine's, also with Ethan. But their past . . . their past wasn't as sweet as his and Mel's," he whispered.
Oh, God!
"Do you really want to know how fucked up my family is? Because this is just a half of the story. And the things I've mentioned are already much, much kinder than the rest of it," he said.
My lips parted, I could not find words to answer his question. I didn't think as I did the only thing that seemed logical to me at that time. I nodded my head. Whether or not I regretted the outcome of our conversation, I was ready to hear it. No, it's just that even though I wasn't ready to hear it, I decided that I would no longer turn my back.
Because that's what happens when you find your precious someone, no? You become prepared to make sacrifices.