Questions?
Questions?
"How is Mira?" Leo asked her. He had thought about giving Mira a call but he felt it would be considered as him going a bit too far since he wasn't really close friends with Mira.
"Great." Mia lied but Leo quickly saw through her.
Mia was always direct and usually looked directly into the other person's eyes when talking except it was something she didn't want to talk about. But just now, she looked down and avoided his gaze.
"It's going to be fine. It's not your fault." He assured her.
"She isn't mad about that." Mia shook her head to correct Leo. He thought Mira was mad at her because Mary had an affair with her father.
"Oh... then what's wrong?" He asked sounding concerned. He wouldn't like the girls' friendship to get broken for anything since Mida and James were the only ones Mia had. He didn't want to include Jeremy to the list.
Mia looked down once again. "She found out about the debt and got mad that I never mentioned it."
Leo looked at her in surprise. "You didn't mention it at all to them?"
He had been asking himself why neither Mira nor James helped Mia at all since they were from rich families. It wasn't like he thought they were both entitled to help Mia, but since they were all friends, he thought they could have helped her with it at least. But now he knew Mia hadn't even told them about it.
"I couldn't... I didn't want them to start seeing me as a....."
"Mia..." Leo took the opportunity to move closer to her so he could touch her hand which was resting on the bed.
"Your friends care about you a lot. Mira, James, they do. I don't think they would have seen you anything less than their best friend."
"I don't... I don't just know..." Mia sniffed sadly.
"And you need to understand Mira. Let's assume you also didn't mention it to me and maybe, I found out about it by next year or even the year after, I am going to get really mad."
He squeezed her hand gently. "You should apologize to her okay? I know you are also going through a lot, but you know Mira loves you a lot and that is why she feels hurt and betrayed."
He used a finger to lift her chin so he could see her face which had been down the whole time.
She had a little tears in her eyes and it made him feel sad.
"I'm sorry you are going through all this at the same time."
"Thanks." She said with a little smile. "My life has been easier with you in it."
"Life becomes easy when you meet a King." He said sarcastically and laughed when she began to laugh.
Seeing her laugh now, he wasn't sure how to raise the topic about her mother and sister. He didn't want anything that would make her feel sad again.
So he thought it was best to leave that for later.
"You said you wanted to talk about something?"
He reminded her.
Mia also remembered he had mentioned he wanted to talk to her about something. Now that he reminded her, she didn't know where to start from and didn't know how he was going to react to her questions.
"Uhmm.... I..." She pulled her ear nervously and this time, she didn't look down but looked into his eyes instead. James had told her to make sure to maintain eye contact with him. That way, she would be able to see all of his emotion on his face.
He waited for her to speak with bated breath as he wondered what she had to say. Hopefully, she wasn't planning to leave his house now right?
"I have a few questions but I don't know how it may sound and even though you do not feel like talking about it, I would appreciate it if you try to answer them." Mia said slowly.
There was nothing like 'If you can't talk about it then you don't have to.' No! She needed answers or else, she wasn't sure she would be able to sleep well at nights.
"Questions?" He asked in surprise and confusion before nodding. "Alright. What.. is it?"
After a little pause, she spoke..
"It's all about Cherry."
Leo's forehead wrinkled. He remembered he had said they were going to talk about this topic later but he hadn't expected her to still be thinking about it.
"I am... just curious about everything." She confessed.
"Mia.. there's really nothing going on between us anymore."
"I know..." She nodded. "But.... I want to know that thing you aren't telling me about. That thing that makes you draw back. I am curious about it."
"Is it something you cannot tell me about?" She asked, sounding slightly hurt. She thought they talked to each other about everything?
Leo sighed before moving away from her to stand up.
Mia looked hurt thinking he was about to leave the room but he just stood there with his back to her.
"I was hurt Mia." He confessed without looking at her.
"And I was really stupid. I thought she was perfect. We went to the same college, it was like a love at first sight. I was coming out of the Chemistry lab, she was returning from her class and we bumped into each other."
"I have always fantasized about meeting the love of my life that way so I assumed that was God answering my prayers."
He narrated.
"I thought she loved me too. Cherry is so ambitious. She would do anything to achieve her goals. She is the type of lady who would go any length just to get what she wanted. And she did just that."
"She cheated."
"She had always complained about how work was giving her so much stress and wished she was in a higher position. If she got promoted, then naturally the work load was going to reduce drastically since she would have an assistant. She really wanted to become a big shot choreographer. I told her I was going to look for any way at all to help her."
He laughed dryly.
"I swore she would never cheat on me since she was really possessive and jealous. But to think it was with a man who could even pass for my father." He laughed again.
"He was one of the top directors in the company she worked for and he was even married with kids. He was fucking married Mia! He was nothing close to being good looking. He was everything opposite of me, the only difference was that he was a director in her company and filthy rich while I was still trying to build my career since my father wasn't willing to sponsor it."
"It made me begin to wonder the number of times she had sex with him and returned to me while I treated her like a princess."
"It made me imagine how she would have returned from the hotel and I would cuddle her to sleep."
"It made me wonder just how many people she had cheated on me with."
He laughed again painfully.
"I felt so disgusted, irritated, pissed. Compared to what I'm guessing you think Mia, I wanted to kill her. Thinking about it everytime makes me want to throw up. Seeing her makes me so angry."
"I had to meet a Therapist for it because I feared I was losing it. Since then, the thought of love repulsed me. Cause every girl looked like Cherry to me."
"I had to do and think about other things because I didn't want to remember that name 'Cherry'. So I began to have flings. I know that's stupid and it's not an excuse to be irresponsible, but I just needed something to help me take my mind off that."
He turned around to look at Mia for the first time.
Mia was still sitting on the bed, looking at him attentively while hugging a pillow.
He smiled a bit at her.
"I thought girls usually cried when a guy talks about this?" He asked to lighten the mood.
"I was supposed to cry?" She asked back before covering her face with her hands and pretended to cry..
"Wooo wooo eeeee"
Leo began to chuckle and she also laughed even though she felt his pain deeply in her heart.
She climbed down from the bed and spread her arms wide to offer him a comforting hug.
Leo smiled at her again before accepting the hug. He moved closer to her and wrapped his arms around her.
"Thank you for listening Mia. It's the first time I ever told anyone except my Therapist about this." He said before placing a kiss at the top of her head.
"I hope you deal with whatever is wrong with you soon. You can't keep such hate in your heart for too long." Mia advised.
"I know." He nodded gently.
"And Mia..." He called softly.
"Hmmm?"
"You never looked like Cherry to me just like other girls did."
Mia was touched but she giggled lightly.
"What about the first day you saw me? What did I look like?"
"A gangster." He answered immediately with a short laugh.