"Heath." She called his name and I could hear it faintly soft from where I was standing. Immediately, I increased my pace, my feet landing on the puddle of mud in haste, before I stood beside Heath, eyeing Kiara.
"Heath." She called him again and I tilted my head to see Heath looking at anywhere but her.
Kiara took one step towards him and he took one step away from her, hitting my shoulder in the process, to now stand in front of me, his back facing me.
"I..." Kiara started to say something but stopped when she saw him glaring at her.
"I don't have anything to say to you." He said, before striding past her in haste, bumping her shoulder harshly in the process. I could see him walking, more like running in the street, as the rain above us once again started to increase in intensity.
Kiara didn't turn around to see him walking away. She didn't look broken like he was. She didn't look hopeless like he had been seeing her like that.
Making out someone else.
In the day of his own bachelor party.
That moment I knew she never loved him the way he loved her. She only showed him what he wanted to see. She only loved him, uh, pretended to love him, because she couldn't refuse him from the start.
My heart ached for his broken heart, and I closed my eyes to calm my raging nerves. How much hurt he'd have been to see her with someone else in front of his own eyes?
Kiara didn't do the right thing. She should've told him the truth from the beginning. She should never have kept both of them in blind.
I directed my gaze from the blurring figure of Heath in the rain towards Kiara only to blanch back in disgust to see her lips swollen red from her heated make out. Her dishevelled clothing, crumpled top and slightly more raised skirt, didn't do much justice to her promiscuous deeds.
"Hazel, I-"
"Please don't. You know what you've done. Show some guilt for God's sake!"
Her eyes welled up in tears and she put her hand on her mouth to stifle a sob. "I... I am sorry. I really am. I...should... shouldn't have done that. I really..." Then she started to sob on me and I couldn't help but feel helpless to see her like that.
She was my sister. If not blood-related, she was my best friend. She always shared everything with me. No matter how dirty her encounter with any stranger was, she never spared any details from me.
I couldn't understand how she could lie to me this time. What her desperate reasons could be for her to betray Heath and me like that? I trusted her so much. I thought she would make him happy.
Moreover, if she was the perosn Heath fell in love with, I was more than happy, though not from the bottom of my heart, to hand her over to him, if that was the key to their happiness.
Both were my precious fom the very start. Both were constant in my life.
"If you know what you did wrong, Kiara..." I looked at her, meeting her eye to eye. "Why'd you do this? Why did you break his heart? Why didn't you make everything clear from the start?"
Listening to my words, she broke into uncontrollable sobs before I saw someone put hand on her shoulder, engulfing her arms and embracing her in a tight comfy hug.
I recognised who he was, I had been seeing him from time to time since Kiara became my step-sister. I should've known there was something between them as Kiara wasn't the type to have some guy friend constant in her life. "Kevin."
"Hazel, I know you won't believe me. You probably think I'm a selfish bastard for making Kiara cheat on Heath like that which I am to be honest, but please remember, I didn't do it on purpose. I didn't hurt anyone intentionally-"
"But you did hurt him anyway!" I turned towards Kiara, grabbing her arms and making her look at me. "Do you even know how much he loved you, Kiara?! Do you?! Didn't you ever realize what you were doing behind his back might me the thing which he expected the least from you to do?! Hell, you were going to marry him in weeks for God's sake! Were you going to have extra-marital affairs behind his back after you get married to him!? Were you!?"
She didn't look at me. I knew she was ashamed. She couldn't look at me. "I didn't get the chance to tell him, Hazel. He was busy preparing our wedding whenever I decided to tell him the truth. He was so happy, I just...I just... didn't know how to tell that to him."
I glared at her. "So you were planning to cheat on him all his life then!? Is that what you've been trying to acheive by kissing some other guy in front of him, in the day of his own bachelor party!? Do you even know... " I stopped to calm my nerves, closing my eyes. A single lone tear slipped down my cheek and I took a deep breath to pacify the burning ache in my heart. "I can't believe you did this. I... I really can't."
Kiara took my hand and looked at me, her eyes reflecting remorse. "I'm sorry, Hazel. I didn't meant to lie to you. I really... I didn't have a choice."
"What choice did you want after coming this far in life, Kiara? I thought you already decided what you want in life after you agreed to his marriage proposal." I asked her, slipping my hands from her grip. "To be his wife. Isn't this the enough proof for the end of all your doubts?! Isn't this why you never refused him anything after that-"
"I didn't do it willingly-"
"Isn't this why you slept with him in the first place!?"
Kiara's eyes widened and she looked at Kevin, shaking her head at him to ease his doubts. "I didn't sleep with him, Hazel! What the hell are you talking about?! He was drunk as hell that day and so I just bought him to his apartment. And then when I started to leave, he wanted me to stay with him so I did. I couldn't refuse him. It's true we slept together that day but trust me, all we did was sleep, nothing else."
I couldn't believe her. "Then why did you tell him you had a great night?! That you slept with him?!"
"What was I supposed to say to him, Hazel, after he woke up with dreamy eyes the drunken night after, looking at me sleeping in my undergarments?! I couldn't say I just slept beside him, without feeling anything for him. You know how big ego the men have. I just couldn't lie to him like that. So I said we slept together."
My eyes widened to saucers listening to all those unexpected revealations. "So you did all this because you felt sorry for him? Because you couldn't tell him the truth face to face?"
Kiara looked down at the wet ground and Kevin took her hand, interwining their fingers. "I'm sorry, Hazel. We both are sorry. I assure you Kiara didn't have any ill intentions from the start."
"But still, you should've said something. He would've understood." I whispered to myself. "You were with someone else all this time, while wearing his engagement ring on your finger."
I looked at her finger, the white crystal diamond shining faintly in the heavy rain. "Didn't you feel it wrong to touch, kiss or hold someone else when you have promised yourself with someone who loves you, a long time ago?"
"I know. I did wrong. I'm sorry, Hazel." Then she raised her hand and slipped the diamond ring out of her finger and carefully placed it on my hands, closing my palm. "Please keep it with yourself and return it to him-"
"No, Kiara. I can't do that. He's already broken beyond recovery from seeing you two in such state. I don't think I'd be able to hurt him by-"
"A relationship born out of other's misery doesn't flourish for long, Hazel. Our marriage wasn't acceptable to his family from the start. It wouldn't have progressed much if our parents and elders weren't happy with it-"
"But still, you should do it yourself."
"I don't love Heath. I never did, Hazel. I love Kevin. It's my first time feeling love so I didn't want to let go of it anytime soon." Kevin smiled at Kiara and squeezed their interwined fingers.
"I don't want to let go of Kevin. I want to be him with the rest of my life. Not with Heath. I don't deserve to be with a man like him. He was far too good for me anyway. And you know what kind of a woman I am. A cheater. A liar. A betrayer. And I always will be. So I guess I don't deserve this ring either."
I shut my eyes tightly and felt tears threatening to spill. I closed my palm containing the ring on it and put it in on my chest, breathing heavily. Just then, I felt someone grab my wrist roughly.
Looking upward, I saw Heath standing in front of me, breathing heavily. His head was down, staring at my hands while he clutched my wrists tightly, firmly.
I thought he was gone already! I looked at him, trying to search his eyes, which were hidden by his bangs. But when he lifted his head and looked at me himself, my own lips formed "O" in shock.
Oh my God. He heard everything.
