THE SPITEFUL

It's a dark philosophy,
And it haunts her constantly.
She's a false alarm to me,
She's a false alarm.

***

CHAPTER XLII

*****

PABLO LOOKED UP from the magazine he had been browsing through at me as I finally made my way out of Eyra's office after our session had ended. Once I had reached him, he put the magazine down completely and stood up so I didn't have to look down at him.

“How did it go?” he asked as I began to make my way out of the clinic, knowing that he was following close behind me.

“It was okay,” I shrugged nonchalantly because it was okay. It hadn't fixed any of my problems, but it also hadn't made any of them worse and I was soon beginning to realise that any day I wasn't worse off than the last day was a good day. “She said that you should come to my next appointment,” I revealed, turning around before he could unlock the car to catch the look on his face.

He seemed surprised at first, his brows furrowing in confusion before he finally spoke up with a frown. “Would you be okay with that?” he asked, to which I shrugged again.

“I don't really care, Pablo. I just want to go home.”

His frown deepened at my indifference, but he held off from commenting on it and instead unlocked the car so I could get in. I tried to smile at him, but I had no doubt that it came out as more of a grimace instead before I slipped into my seat and he shut the door after me. I looked down at my hands as he rounded the car and got into the driver's seat before starting the car and driving down the road. We both sat in silence before he finally spoke, breaking it.

“I need to go to Guillermo's house first to pick up something. Is that okay with you?” he asked to which I just nodded because I didn't care but then he went on to give me a reason to care. “Celeste will be there.”

I pursed my lips at his warning, thinking over if I was mentally ready to see Celeste again before shrugging. Even if I wasn't okay with seeing her, where else was I supposed to go? There was nothing else for me to do at home and as much as I liked and appreciated Abigail, we just didn't have that connection together. I hadn't even seen Jorge since after our trip because I hadn't been bothered to step outside my room at all. Pablo was the only form of human contact I had when Mateo was with Daniel and as indifferent as I tried to be, human contact was something I couldn't be without. I wasn't sure just quite what I would do on my own.

Pablo didn't say anything else after that until we had reached our destination. It was clear that some days, he didn't even have the energy to try with me, yet he never gave up on me. I admired that quality about him but I also hated the fact that it seemed to be me that drained the life out of him. I couldn't even begin to fathom how spending every second of his day with someone like me affected him and Mateo. The realisation only made me want to disappear more. I wanted to try harder for him but I was doing the best I could and it still felt like I was getting nowhere. My 'best' amounted to absolutely nothing at all.

Pablo, unaware of my thoughts, parked the car in front of a large modern looking house - which oddly did seem very much like a place Celeste would live - before stepping out. He made to come over to my side and open the door for me, but before he could reach me, I was already out, slamming the door shut behind me. The property we were on was gated so he didn't bother locking his car as he made his way towards the front door with me following close behind him.

I couldn't help but feel out of place. Despite the property being a lot smaller than my own home, it still felt so big and overwhelming. I felt like I didn't fit in a place so fancy with my messy hair thrown into a loose bun and one of Daniel's oversized hoodies. I felt like I didn't belong.

I hadn't heard when Pablo rang the bell but a few seconds later, the door had swung open revealing Celeste who seemed just as surprised to see me as I was to see her. Funny enough, there seemed to be no animosity between the two of us. Maybe her seeing me in such a bad mental state had changed the dynamics of our relationship. Maybe now she pitied me.

“Guillermo is in his office,” she told Pablo as she let us in, making Pablo nod and give her a thankful smile.

Their relationship seemed to have changed too. While I was sure Pablo couldn't stand her before, now he seemed to be surprisingly warmer towards her. Then I had remembered everything he told me about how she had fought for me when I was gone and I couldn't help but feel bad.

Pablo turned back to me and squished my cheeks together, making me roll my eyes despite him smiling at the way my lips puckered out like a swollen fish. “You look so cute,” he cooed as he rubbed my cheeks and I stared at him blankly which only made him chuckle more. “I'll be right back, okay?” he said to which I just nodded.

He gave me a satisfied smile before making his way up the stairs as if he already knew this house by heart and leaving me alone downstairs with Celeste. I took the time to look around and truly admire the interior decor before deciding to break the awkward silence between us.

“Your house is really pretty,” I complimented her without turning around to see her reaction, yet I knew she was watching me.

“Thank you,” she said modestly which was quite unlike her before she spoke again, asking the thing it seemed she had been wanting to ask for a long time. “How are you doing?”

This time I did turn back to look at her, immediately noticing the concern on her face and coming to my conclusion. She did pity me. Could I really blame her though? I was sure at this stage the whole town had caught wind of how I failed at killing myself and how Daniel had broken up with me. By now I wouldn't be surprised if people already entertained themselves with gossip about how much of a nutcase I was that couldn't do anything right. I wouldn't blame them.

I let a long moment pass between us where I just stared at her, trying to read every emotion that flickered across her expression but also trying to decide on an answer. To lie or not to lie. That was the question.

“I've been better,” I finally answered once I had decided to take pity on her. I didn't want to make her too uncomfortable. From the looks of it, she really wasn't the same Celeste that she was almost three years ago. At least not to me anyway. I still couldn't let myself get comfortable around her or anyone really. We weren't friends. “How are you?”

“I'm good,” she answered back like a normal human being unlike me.

I forced a smile onto my lips, ready to turn around and head back to the car to escape the awkwardness when I had taken notice of what she had been fiddling with on her ring finger.

“Guillermo proposed?” I asked, feeling the most genuine feeling of happiness and excitement I had felt in a long while. As she nodded her head in response to my question, I couldn't help the smile that stretched across my lips. There was just something about weddings that got me all jittery. “I'm so happy for you.”

Somehow, I had meant what I said as well. I couldn't stand there and lie and say that a part of me wasn't jealous because I knew I was. I knew if it wasn't for what happened two years ago, I would probably be a married woman by now as well. Still, what I felt for Celeste and Guillermo was genuine happiness for the both of them because Guillermo was just great all around and as much as me and Celeste weren't friends, I did care about her the same way she cared about me. Even if we didn't show it.

She opened her mouth to say something but the words seemed to get stuck in her throat which resulted in a deep frown settling on her pink lips.

“Is everything alright?” I asked, but she only shook her head and made her way towards the sitting room, prompting me to follow behind her in concern. “Celeste?”

“Everything's not alright,” she declared much to my surprise. I stood at the doorway and watched as she poured herself a glass of red wine that almost resembled the colour of her hair and then looked at me. “I feel so guilty,” she confessed which had only been met with my blank stare. “I want so badly to hate you.” I raised an eyebrow in response to her question but remained silent. “I want the hurt that I feel from you to be justified but I hurt you more than you hurt me and I'm sorry.”

The look on Celeste's face was that of genuine sorrow and guilt and pleading for me to forgive her, but I didn't say anything. Not because I didn't want to but because I didn't know what to say. I was still trying to process a lot of things that happened and on top of that, I wasn't very good at accepting apologies. It made me uncomfortable because I didn't get why people were apologising to me half the time. Whether or not they apologised, I would still forgive them and move on. It was how I was.

“I was reckless with Mateo,” she continued under my silence, but since Mateo was the topic, I didn't have the mind to stop her. “I didn't leave him with Lucia on purpose. I just didn't know how to take care of him and I left him alone and when you confronted me, I felt attacked so I spinned the blame back on you. I'm not a mother and I'm most likely never going to be one, but I can't even begin to imagine how you felt when that happened and I'm sorry for the part I played in that.”

“It's...okay?” I hesitated because that sounded arbitrary coming from my mouth. It felt like that was all I ever said to people. That everything was okay. Not because it was actually okay, but because I wanted to soothe them and let them believe that it was.

“It's not okay and you know it,” she sighed as she took a seat on her sofa and covered her eyes with her hands before letting out a dry chuckle. “I can't even be angry about what happened before you left because I didn't treat you good back then either.”

I bit down on my bottom lip as I watched her carefully before finally deciding to ask her the question I had on my mind. “Did you really see me as a friend?” I asked to which she frowned.

“My idea of a friend was skewed back then,” she admitted, making me look at her in a whole new light. She seemed to have done a lot of work on herself. “I considered you a friend to me because of all the things you did for me. Even overlooking the fact that most times you didn't have a choice.” She stopped talking for a second and let out a deep breath, a pained grimace coming across her face before she finally looked at me. “I realise I had never been a friend to you though so I had no right to feel betrayed. I never treated you the way friends should.”

I had nothing to say because there was nothing to say. Celeste had said it all and even though I couldn't assume myself completely blameless in the situation, I also didn't feel the need to apologise for anything I did. Well, except for one thing.

“I'm sorry for how I went about it when you confronted me,” I said, making her chuckle at the memory of me apologising to her for being better.

“Don't be,” she said, waving a nonchalant hand. “I kind of admire it. I won't lie. Plus, I shouldn't have ever put my hands on you.” Suddenly, she got up and made her her over to me, making my heart race at the prospect of being hit by her again but to my surprise, she only stopped in front of me and stared right into my eyes. “Slap me back. Twice. So we'll be even.”

“I'm not going to slap you, Celeste,” I said, rolling my eyes at her antics. “I'm over it.”

She took a step back from me, her disappointment obvious as she watched me. “You forgive too easily. That's why people take advantage of you,” she said, making me furrow my brows at her words.

How would she know why people took advantage of me if she wasn't one of those people herself? That was the issue though. She was one of those people and she admitted that, asked for my forgiveness and I gave it to her. If anyone would know why I was constantly taken advantage of, it would be her. In all honesty, I wanted nothing more than to deny her statement immediately, but my defensiveness only made me realise that there must have been some kind of truth to it.

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you let people enter your life so easily and assign them so much significance?” she asked, sounding so eloquent and right? “Ehy do you pity people? You need to be angry. Let yourself be angry.” She stood there and watched me thoughtfully for a second, as if expecting a reaction from me before letting out a huff and stepping back from me. “If I were you, I'd bask in the failures of my enemies. These people that are trying to kill you right now? I'd live every second knowing that every day I sleep and wake up is another day that my enemies have failed and I have succeeded.”

I couldn't help but frown at her words, not liking the idea of living every second of the day for someone else yet something about being as spiteful had she was intrigued me. “This is how you run?” I asked, to which she only looked at me blankly. “You live on the resentment you feel for others? Then every second you live, it's for them. To spite them.”

“Well, what do you live for?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at me. “This may sound insensitive, Ara, but if you kill yourself, they win. What I do? It's better than dying.”

“I disagree,” I frowned but she didn't let up.

“Even if you do,” she said, “you need to learn to be angry at people and not just forgive as soon as they apologise. You need to learn to feel everything, the sadness, the fury, the anger. For all you know, all this sadness you feel could be because you had never truly forgiven people and let go of it when it happened because you try to suppress your emotions instead of feeling them fully. Because you think you're somehow wrong for being angry and upset?” She furrowed her eyebrows as if finding it hard to believe that someone could genuinely believe that. “You don't deserve to be hurt, Araceli. You just allow it to happen. And the more you allow things to happen, the more it does.”

I didn't like what Celeste was telling me, but that didn't make her words any less true. Thinking back on all the times I had been wronged and how I went about my relationship with those people, I realised that I did forgive them very easily. Too easily. I forgave so fast, I barely had a chance to even process my emotions about what had happened. I never gave myself time to properly understand just how upset I was. I always disregarded my own feelings because how I felt didn't matter to me. It was almost as if I felt like I didn't deserve to be apologised to and I only deserved the pain that they caused me, so instead of forgiving them, I would try to brush it under the rug and carry on as if nothing happened.

I thought back on my therapy session earlier that day, remembering the task that Eyra had given me. She had told me to write a letter to someone from my past that I would never send to them, but I'd have to be completely honest and say my true thoughts. When I first heard the task, I was skeptical and reluctant but now it was obvious to see that it was only because I knew I would have some shit to say. There were so many things that people had done to me that I had never fully let go of and not only was it weighing me down, it was hindering the progress of all my relationships.

Especially with Daniel. I needed to stop suppressing all my negative emotions towards him so I could finally let him love me.

“Ara?” the sound of Pablo's voice had broken me out of my thoughts, making me look to him as he climbed down the stairs and made his way towards me. Behind him, the familiar smiling face of Guillermo followed. “How are you?” he asked as he held my face in his hands but refrained himself from squishing my cheeks again.

“I'm fine,” I answered, giving him a small smile despite the turmoil going through my head. “Are we going now?” I asked to which he nodded, a small reassuring smiling stretching across his face as he finally dropped his hands from my cheeks. I quickly looked over Pablo's shoulder and smiled widely at Guillermo. “Bye, Guillermo,” I said, waving at home as my form of greeting since I never properly got the opportunity to say hello to him.
He smiled at the gesture and waved back to me as Pablo and I began making our way towards the door.

“Take care of yourself,” he said to which I nodded, telling him that I would. Or at the very least, I would try my best to.

Finally, I turned to Celeste before I had walked out the door and tentatively waved goodbye to her. The way her eyes lit up and the corners of her lips quirked upward was hard to miss as she immediately waved back at me. It seemed even though she tended to have a tough exterior, once you got passed that, she was a lot nicer than she came off as. It was obvious then that I had misjudged her.

***

As Pablo drove us home, I had remained lost in my thoughts, replaying the conversation I had had earlier with Celeste and applying her words to different areas of my life. What I couldn't help but dwell on the most happened to be my relationship with Anna. As much as I claimed to love her, I couldn't find it in myself to forgive her as soon as she apologised and it was only after a good few minutes spent thinking about it before I finally realised why.

I had never expected Anna to treat me that way. I had never expected her to hurt me the way she did. Everyone else that had hurt me before didnt surprise me, because I expected that from them but maybe it was in the way our relationship had formed or the way Anna presented herself but to be ever purposefully hurt by her was something I didn't think would ever happen. So when it eventually did happen, I needed more time to process my feelings about it so I could forgive her. And I had forgiven her, but the poor girl didn't know it yet so I decided to change that.

“Pablo,” I said quietly, breaking the silence that had surrounded us in the car. Pablo didn't take his eyes off the road, but he hummed his acknowledgement of me. “Can you take me to Anna?”

He seemed surprised with my question, but slowly the surprise turned more into a look of pride before he nodded his head and smiled. “Of course.”

I didn't say anything else the entire car ride until he had driven in through the most familiar gates of my life and parked right outside the front door of the place that harboured so many of my nightmares. It had always been easier for me to let myself in when I knew Daniel still lived there, but Daniel had moved out quite a while ago. Not even Emma still lived here anymore so there was truly no reason for me to be here. No reason apart from Anna.

I stepped out of the car, letting Pablo wait in it for me as I made my way over to the front door and knocked. The bell was at the gate, but we never rang it since the guards knew Pablo and just defaulted to letting us in. I stood patiently by the door for a couple seconds before knocking again. This time harder as I hoped a little bit harder that somebody would open up.

More time had passed and just when I had convinced myself that nobody was going to let me in, the door swung open revealing to my absolute delight a pair of familiar blue eyes.

“Araceli?” Anna asked as if she could barely recognise me, a confused smile on her face. She must've still been working because she was in her uniform. “What are you doing here? The only person that lives here now is—”

Before she could finish her sentence, I wrapped my arms around her neck, pulling her in for a genuine hug as I buried my face in the crook of her neck. “I missed you so much,” I found myself crying, the tears I didn't know I needed to let out so bad dripping from my cheeks and onto her collarbone as she slowly wrapped her arms around me as well. Almost as if she didn't understand what was fully going on.

“I-I missed you too,” she said, making me pull back a little to look into her eyes. Nothing could explain just how warm the familiarity of her eyes made me. Nothing could explain just how happy she made me.

“I'm sorry it took me so long to come back to you,” I apologised, giving her a small smile. “I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago. I just want us to be friends again,” I confessed, making her eyes widen and then fill with tears she wasn't going to allow to fall. “Can we just be friends again?”

“Of course!” she answered without the slightest ounce of hesitation as she pulled me back in to hug her and squeezed me tighter and harder than she had before. “I missed you so much.”

In that moment, I couldn't help but bask in the first genuine hug I had received from my best friend in years.

***

Stepping into the house, I hadn't even been allowed time to prepare myself before I felt something small bump into my legs. In confusion, I looked down at my feet only to see Teo who had fallen onto his butt looking up at me with a large smile on his lips.

“Mama!” he almost yelled around his pacifier, immediately scrambling to his feet and outstretching his arms for me to carry him. I couldn't help but feel my already good mood lift even more as I picked him and held him close to my chest, completely ignoring whatever it was Pablo had been saying to me before that.

“My love,” I cooed as I pressed my cheek into his. “I missed you so much! How are you?” He only giggled behind his hands, making my heart swell with how cute he was before taking notice of what had been sitting on top of his head of curls. “What's this? Is that a tiara?” I asked, making a large smile stretch across his face as he took the tiara off and held it to my face so I could have a closer look.

“Pwetty.”

“Yes, my love. It's so pretty,” I agreed, placing the diamond encrusted tiara back on his head. “Did papa give it to you?” I asked to which he nodded, his eyes sparkling with happiness. “That's amazing, my love. And did you say thank you to papa?”

“Yeah!” he exclaimed a little too quickly, making me raise a suspicious eyebrow at him.

“Are you sure?” He let out a small giggle, hiding the way his cheeks flushed bright red as he buried his head in the crook of my neck and shook his head. I couldn't help but laugh myself as I rubbed his back and made my way into the sitting room to meet Abigail who was packing up her things. “Well, next time, you know what you gotta tell him, okay?”

He only nodded his head before looking back up at me with hopeful brown eyes. “Pway, mama?” he requested, making me beam at him and set him down on his feet.

“Tell you what. You go upstairs with uncle and grab all your toys and then we can play, okay?” I said, making him nod before he sprinted out the sitting room to where Pablo had been lingering by the staircase engrossed in his phone.

Finally alone, I turned to abigail with an apologetic smile and spoke. “I'm sorry for keeping you so late,” I apologised, knowing that she usually ended at six but I had only showed up by half seven. “You can come in later tomortow or I can pay you for your time.”

“Don't bother,” she said, giving me a warm smile. “I really didn't mind spending the time with Mateo. He's a joy,” she said, only making me make a mental note to pay her back for her time instead when her paycheck came. “Before I go,” she said suddenly as she pulled something out from behind the sofa. “Mr. Reyes asked that I give this to you.”

She handed me a small book which seemed to have already been read with corners of pages folded to bookmark sections and different words and paragraphs underlined and noted. I wanted to ask her what exactly it was but by the time I had looked back up, she was already half way out the door, making me frown. Even if I had the mind to chase after her, I wasn't sure she herself would know what it was.

It didn't seem to be something written by Daniel, but more rather something read by him. It was only after I had flipped the small book over to the front did I catch a glimpse of the cover, realising that this had been the poetry collection book he had been reading recently. He gave it to me.

I scoffed at the sight of the book and placed it on the coffee table, not wanting to even give it a shot. I didn't want to read shit from him. I wanted to see him. I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to hold him for fuck sakes. What was a stupid collection of poems going to do for me?

In a huff, I made my way upstairs and into my bathroom to take a shower so I could calm down before I went into Mateo's room to play. I didn't want my bad mood to dampen his happiness.

***

After finally coercing Teo to fall asleep after playing with him for an hour or so, I found myself sat at my desk thinking deeply about the task I was set by Eyra again. She had made it clear that this wasn't something something I had to do, but even after my conversation with Celeste, I realised that I wanted to do it. I wanted to write a letter to all the people that had ever hurt me in my lifetime and tell them how I really felt even though they'd never see it. Even if I didn't know how I really felt.

I was reluctant to say it, but Daniel was the relationship I had the most issues with, yet he wasn't the person I made a priority to write a letter to first. Instead, I stared down at the letter I had spent the last half hour writing addressed to no one else but my dead mother.

In it I had talked to her like I would've if she had never kicked me out when I was too young. I apologised for all the pain I had caused her. I thanked her for all she had done to keep me well during my life and I put myself in her shoes when she had kicked me out. I knew why she had done it and I fully forgave her for it, but I wouldn't treat me the way she treated me and I knew that even if she had been alive with me in that very moment, our relationship would've never gone back to what it used to be.

My mom's love for me was very conditional and while I could forgive that, I could never forget that.

In the letter, I had also acknowledged how that single night had changed my life for good. Not because of the hands that I fell into after but because of the mindset that I had I let consume me. Knowing that my mother's love had been conditional made me think that all love had been conditional and while that was true - and the basis of a healthy relationship with boundaries set - I had the conditions of a healthy relationship skewed. At the end, I acknowledged how sad it was that it only took one night to ruin a relationshipship of over fifteen years but then also acknowledged the fact that if that one night was big enough to cause a lifetime of damage, then it was enough reason to deem a relationship unsalvageable.

After years of carrying such big heartache, I finally found it in me to let go of my mother and say goodbye. I had been with her even when she had thrown me out. In my heart, I had always been with her but now, at the age of twenty-three, I was finally leaving home and letting go of her on my own terms. I was saying goodbye the way I was supposed to.

I let the tears trail down my cheeks and wet the paper as I had read the last part of my letter over and over again, letting the last words to my mother engrave itself into my head.

I forgive you, mama.
Love,
Tu Aracelia.

*****

Hey loviessss

Is this me being consistent?? Yes, it is. Is it going to last? Idk but most likely hopefully. Idk.

Anyway, this has been scheduled to happen since the very beginning of the book. Clock the fact that the issues that Ara is tackling right now isn't just from things that had happened when she had been trafficked but also are the issues from her upbringing. I had always planned for something like this to happen for Ara to fully level up because she's always had issues from the getgo and that's why she had suffered so much with Daniel.

I knew there were a lot of people who were disappointed with Ara's development from the first book come this one, but she wasn't supposed to be perfect and thats why I planned this. Like I said multiple times, this story has a happy ending but Ara needs to be strong enough to fight for it. And after this? She will be :)

Now, tell me what yall think of Celeste on this chapter? Do you like her advice for Ara or do you think she needs to stay the same?

And also I see yall want a Daniel's pov so I'll see what I can put together but anyways I'll see yall next time.