Read with BonusRead with Bonus

9: Elise

WE parted with Gian’s mother in the parking lot of the hospital after I’d signed a waiver absolving the establishment from responsibility if anything untoward happens to me upon their release of me.

Mang Karding, Gian’s personal driver, was going to drive Madam Soniah home while Gian would drive me to my place.

And of course, he had to carry me again from the wheelchair even though I protested—err, squeaked, really—that I could walk, and carefully laid me down on the front seat and strapped me in like a recalcitrant child.

I felt like an invalid. Thanks to the meds that were still working, I didn’t feel like one, though I must look like a wreck. He reclined the seat so I could be comfortable, and used up about three minutes more to fuss—the works—before he finally placed himself behind the wheel to drive us out of there.

If I didn’t know he treated his mother the very same way when something ailed the gentle lady, I would have been pissed off.

I secretly loved him for it, to be honest. But I couldn’t let him know for fear he would get spoiled!

For the first minutes of the drive, I didn’t dare say anything.

He was looking straight at me when he promised his mother he would take me back if there would be a problem, and that he would watch over me tonight himself and would not leave me until he deemed it necessary.

It meant that any chance to come back here and be confined for the night rested entirely on my behavior.

Well, I was behaving. I would not go back there but for a check-up, even if it would amuse the hell out of him.

He was the first one who talked.

“How do you feel?”

But before I could answer, he continued.

“Let me know if it’s bad so we can go back. Don’t bullshit me and not say anything just because you don’t wanna go back there. I’ll expect more from you than that.”

I was especially mindful of how my head rested on the headrest to avoid my stitched cut getting between it and my skull. It felt sore despite the pain meds.

My head felt as heavy as a giant watermelon, disconnected somehow from my neck, like an alien object and not a part of my body.

“Okay, I’ll do that,” I replied dully.

Again, I heard from him that sound that was between a growl and a controlled scream.

I sighed deeply.

I knew it was a bad idea, but I just couldn’t stay quiet anymore about his bullshit.

“Gian, what she did was not your fault,” I started. “Well, your mistake was dating her in the first place. But tonight or the previous one in the office wasn’t your fault. Your ex-girlfriend just happens to be a crazy bitch.”

I avoided the grimace because talking made it hurt a little bit. But he couldn’t know that. He was already more stressed than me.

“She was never my girlfriend.”

I would have laughed if I wasn’t afraid my head could fall. “Well, okay. But she’s an ex’d.”

“I was never—”

“Ex’d—an ex-date. E. X. Apostrophe. D,” I spelled. “Ex-date. Got it?”

“What?” he asked, a heavy scowl of confusion on his face. His poker face was missing in action tonight.

“It’s what I call them, your previous women,” I explained further. And then I thought, why was I so chatty? Why was I telling him this? It was never my plan to let him know. Or that I used the ‘fuck’ word when I was thinking.

Ugh.

“Sorry. Meds.”

“So you have a nickname for… them,” he said drily.

We stopped at the red light. I watched the throng of pedestrians hurrying to cross the road in front of our car as I waited to reply. Our car was one of the first line of vehicles caught at the red light.

“Yes…”

“They knew what they were getting in for. They knew I had no heart for emotional entanglements,” he argued. Yes, it was in an argumentative tone. He clearly had lost his cool hours ago.

“Brr,” was my reaction. I even mocked-trembled as if cold.

“But it’s not right to even call them exes, Elise. They are... not exactly… friends, either. But…”

“Stop before you hurt yourself.”

He sighed. “C’mon, Elise. Give me a break. I feel like hell already.”

My heart melted for him. But I was still far from ruffling feathers mode because he was the one acting like a brat.

Wasn’t I the one beaten up?

“Shiela didn’t seem to get the memo.”

“Shiela was a mistake.”

That voice. As if hell had frozen over. I didn’t want to be in Shiela’s place right then.

Or, come to think of it, ever.

I could not imagine myself getting obsessed like that with any other man—even Gian.

I would hit myself with a bottle of wine first—a bigger one.

I’d rather have amnesia.

I again remembered Shiela’s episode in the office.

There was a moment in the end, when Gian was pulling her to his office, when she smiled like a crazy person. I didn’t want to think about it like it was the kind of crazy you didn’t even want to think about, because she was already crazy in the first place, and the other facet to that was just too icky.

But the events of tonight and these meds were making me careless with my thoughts.

Did it turn Sheila on, seeing Gian so angry and, possibly, violent?

Like she was expecting to get punished, but instead, she looked at violence as a reward.

And judging from my experiences with that crazy bat, any kind of reward would be of a sexual nature.

So... did she want to have violent sex?

And, that grin... did she expect she was getting it inside the office?

A bigger part of me was saying ‘yes,’ I was going on the right thread with this.

So, did this mean Gian did it before…

“Eewww.” That was involuntary. I just couldn’t help it.

“What?” Gian had turned to me and was now looking at me as if he was suspicious of bringing me home now.

“Nothing,” I said quickly, but my mind was a mess.

No, it had been too fast then. They couldn’t have done anything that quickly inside his office.

No, she had looked shaken up, and scared, when she emerged from inside, and not satisfied like she was rewarded with what she wanted to receive.

It wasn’t like when some of Gian's agreeable Ex'ds visited him and they came out a little mussed, and yet dazed with happiness.

Shiela didn't have that air that day.

Another quiet second passed. I looked for another subject to talk about. The Shiela subject was too much.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I remembered something I’d heard before, about a girlfriend in the past.

This was a real girlfriend and was allegedly Gian’s very first.

They were in a relationship for a long time. They were together for a few years.

I had never heard a more controversial story, something more scandalous than Shiela’s exploits, in fact.

Even when I still lived in the province and I was still in high school when it happened, it wasn’t kept from me because it reached my family. It was all over socmed, too.

I overheard—okay, I eavesdropped—on Inay at Itay Jess worriedly talking about Gian. They didn’t know I was home from school because it was earlier than my usual out, so they weren’t careful about what they were talking about while they cooked snacks for me and my younger half-sibling, Anna.

Don’t make him remember, my inner Amazona warned me.

I’ve always been curious about her, I replied.

For real? Ayyy, don’t say I didn’t warn you!

I subtly turned my head to him.

His features had turned to stone.

Had he guessed what I was thinking just because he heard the eww-word from me?

Maybe.

Why was I being vindictive?

I couldn’t feel sympathy for him dating the bitch. I’d never liked Shiela because, from the beginning, she had been manipulative, arrogant, and abusive.

Turned out I was right that she would only be a problem for him.

Well, it wasn’t like he asked for my opinion, but there were times when I could feel that he cared that I liked the women he dated.

I had special preferences for two or three of them since I worked in the office, and I had hoped he’d pursue them actively. They were awesome and they treated me like his younger sister.

I sighed again.

Did he still think of Trina Cheng?

Had he moved on from her, truly?

Or was it an act? It’s been years, but why hadn’t he still seriously committed to a woman since then?

Why, since that girl, hadn’t he ever called anyone a girlfriend?

Ever.

Previous Chapter
Next Chapter