Chapter 30

Erica

Its been another week of hell for me. I have been having an affair with my bed as I was mostly sick. Every now and then I was hit with nausea. I couldn't even stand the smell of fish and some other smelly items. Not to mention that Ethan has distanced himself from me. I thought that he would come to apologize or explain his part but he didn't even bother calling me. I felt hurt by his lack of concern. I used to go to office but then I avoided seeing him. I caught his glimpse here and there but that was it. Not talking, no meeting.

Alex insisted on giving him time, but I had absolutely zero patience now. I was frustrated, angry, grumpy and I didn't even know why.

"Erica Williams. You can go in now." I looked hearing my name from one of the hospital nurses calling me. Alex had forced me to get done with a check up because I had fallen sick a couple of times in front of her. So here I was now taking a day off from work, calling sick.

I went in side and after a while all the tests were taken. They told me to collect the reports after three days and I made the payments and left. Once I reached home I hopper onto the bed and took a nap for about two hours. After I woke up I felt a little better. I no longer felt nauseous. Not wanting to cook anything, I opened a pack of chips and turned on my Netflix watching some of my favorite shows.

Ethan still hadn't called me and the more I thought about him the more I felt hurt. The door bell rang and I got up groaning from my bed and went up to my door. I opened the door to see Ethan standing there with a a worried expression on his face. I just stared at him before he spoke.

"Can I come in?"

I snapped out of my trance and all the anger from the past week flew in back.

"No." I was about to slam the door on his face but he stopped it.

"Baby, I need to talk to you. Can we go somewhere outside?" He sounded serious and therfore I went with him thinking that he would provide me some kind of explanation. Honestly whatever he would say can never justify lying to me and going behind my back. But still I was ready to listen to him. He drove for a few streets until we were to a lonely bridge.

"Alexandra said that you were sick. What happened? "

Ignoring his questions I stood in front of him face to face and asked the one question that I had been dying to get the answer for.

"Why did you lie to me? "

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Baby, I didn't lie to you I just didn't tell you the whole thing."

"Okay fine, Why did you hide things from me?" I spoke in irritation.

"I didn't want to hurt you. I knew you'd get mad if I told you that I was going to meet Christine."

"If you knew that then why did you meet her? For God's sake Ethan, you can't go an a date with any other woman when you already have a girlfriend. Your parents want you to get married to her. What do you expect me to do then? I can't be happy knowing that. You've hurt me so much." My voice broke at the last part. I don't even know why I was crying.

"I'm sorry that I hurt you. I just had to go there because Dad wanted me to go."

"You say that everytime Ethan. Everytime you say sorry and everytime I forgive you. Do you even love me?" I asked annoyed at his behavior.

"I know, I don't know what to do. I am trying to make everyone happy. I don't want to hurt anyone."

"You can't make everyone happy. You should think about your own happiness. Your problem is that you care about others so much that you lose yourself in giving others. Be selfish sometimes. You have the right to be happy and to do as you please. Your father can't tell you what to do anymore."

"You don't understand Erica. He is threatening to take away everything from me. Everything. You know about my hotels, right? Well, if I had them I wouldn't give a f*ck about the CEO position. But guess what, without Dad's company and investors I will be doomed. I am between the devil and the deep sea. Try to understand my situation." Frustration was clearly visible on his face. He was hurting as much as me and I wanted to take away all his problems if I could. I couldn't bear to see him so helpless.

"I understand. I know how much you have worked hard for it. It's not nice knowing that whatever you've worked hard for so many years would be taken away from you. We will work this out. I can talk to Dad and tell him to convince Christine out of this marriage. I'm sure he will understand." This time my voice was very soft. I didn't want to burden him with my own anger and frustration. I was ready to do anything to reduce his troubles.

"No, you don't have to do that. I have made up my mind. I have to go." Saying that he walked to the car leaving me. I went after him stopping him.

"Wait Ethan, wait. What are you going to do?" I said stopping him.

"I can't see you in pain baby. Its better If I do as Dad wants me to do. Then no one will have any trouble. You wouldn't have to worry about me keeping things from you. Our parents will get what they wanted. Problem solved." I couldn't speak for a moment. His words shocked me. He was giving up on us and I wanted to shake him and bring him back to his senses.

"What are you saying? You can't do that. I love you. You can't leave me. You can't end things with me. We'll work this out. Everything will be fine." I said with tears in my eyes.

"It isn't happening baby. I can't see you like this." He spoke with sadness evident in his voice.

"Don't say like this Ethan. We'll try to convince your father. No parent will kill thier children's happiness for their own sake. He will understand. Please don't leave me Ethan. I love you so much." I didn't care that I was reduced to begging. Because at that moment I would do anything to make him change his mind.

"We can be together baby. I'll get married to Christine. Everybody will be happy and we can continue seeing each other, no one will never know." I lost my last hope at that sentence. He was telling me to become the one thing that I despised the most. The another woman. I pushed him hard making him stumble back on his feet.

"How could you say that to me? You want me to be your mistress? You want me to be waiting for you after you come from enjoying your time with your happy family. You want me to be your personal wh*re? If your earlier words didn't hurt me then this certainly did Ethan. I can't believe after I gave you so much of love, loving you more than anything, you ask me to be your mistress? I have already lived that life of being someone's family destroyer. I won't be that woman. My mother was, I won't. I will never forgive you for this, never." My heart broke into a million pieces at my own declaration. This was the worst feeling ever.

"Baby please try to understand it's not..........."

"..... what I meant. Seriously Ethan? I thought you could do better than that".

"But may be its not your fault, maybe its mine, its my foolishness to think that you would be mine....... "

"No wait let me finish". I said raising my palm to stop him from interrupting.

"I should have known that, I simply should have known." I whispered the last part to myself.

I tried to turn away from him and go but as soon as I turned he caught my wrist with a tight grip and pinned me to the wall forcing me to look into his eyes.

"Leave me, let me go, I said leave me". I said between sobs. I somehow broke free from his grip and ran from there.

I didn't know how much I ran until I found myself in front of my house. Rushing towards my room I locked the door and collapsed on the floor leaning my head on the door. I don't know for how long I stayed in that way but when my phone rang I saw that it was already 7 in the evening.

Oh lord!! Did I just spend 3 hours of my life leaning on the door like an emotional wreck?

Sighing I answered my phone without glancing at the caller ID. "Hello"

There was silence on the other side as I waited for the person to speak. After a long silence the person spoke, and the next words he spoke felt like a sharp pain in my heart as if someone had slowly pierced a knife in my heart.

Each word was a stab in my heart. "Erica, you were right, we were never meant to be, I'd like to believe that whatever we had was special to you as it was for me". Tears blinded my vision at the longing I felt for the man who was currently speaking to me like a total stranger.

He continued, "But I think we are better off without each other......and its best if we aren't together because this relationship was to bring happiness to me and you and everyone around us and clearly it has caused every bit of pain to you and me". I wanted to scream at him and say how much it was hurting me. I wanted to yell at him and make him realize that it was him who broke off things between us and he had no right to sounded pained about it.

"I guess some part of me will always love you and the rest of me is just going to die. Bye, Erica."

And then he hung up. I was too stunned to say anything so I just continued to stare at the phone screen processing his words. His each word kept repeating in my mind like a loud jumbled echo. Tears rolled down my eyes. Darkness began to cloud my vision and then and there I fainted.

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