Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 158
—
[Sera’s Crochets – Camera Room]
The modelling shots are over now, but the edition before posting is ongoing, and as the models cleaned themselves up, Seraphina supervised the edition process too.
A guard suddenly rushed inside, and Seraphina lifted her back from the systems, looking at him questioningly.
“You should see the news, Miss.” He said slowly, worried.
“News?” She frowned.
“It’s about Mr. Tobias St. Graves…..death.” the guard said.
The camera slipped from between her palms and crashed, and her life stopped existing immediately.
A minute later, she was already running out of the building, barefoot. She had to take off her heels cos she knew her run would slow down.
She was about to leap into her car when Jude appeared from the other side of the road in a different car.
Her eyes widened again.
She ran to him.
“Jude! Please tell me it’s not tr—”
“I’m sorry, Miss.” He cut in.
She shook her head, slowly…very slowly… painstakingly slow.
“No…no… Jude…no… he’s not….”
“I’ll take you there,” Jude opened the door of his car, and she dashed inside, chest bleeding with the brutal stab the news caused.
Her mind was splitting every millisecond, and her head felt like it wasn’t on her neck anymore.
Tobias? Gone?
Dead? Ceasing to exist?
Then she has no reason to exist again too, so it’s impossible.
Highly impossible.
It can’t happen, but why is she crying? Yeah, she’s shedding tears now. Her lenses softened, and her sight blurred a little.
She pinched herself deeply drawing blood as she imagined life again without him. It felt bitter, sour, meaningless, pointless.
She felt desolate, empty.
Her tears rushed harder, till Jude stopped the car at an area that doesn’t look like the city overpass.
The accident happened at the overpass, right? So…
Why are they in a place that has so many plum trees and flowers?
Jude came down from the car and opened the door for her too.
“He’s waiting..” he said.
She slowly stepped out, hiccuping….
“Who’s…”
“Walk down the path, and you’ll find him…” He cut in and turned around, walking away from her.
Seraphina wanted to call him back ask who? Ask why they’re here.
But he was already too far gone. She could only followed his words and go down the thin path beside the smallest plum tree around.
Walking felt insufficient, so she ran.
She ran, breathlessly, her hair flowing, evening dress swirling, and her tears drying on her cheeks.
When she got to the end of the path where there’s another array of plum trees, she stopped.
No one’s waiting.
She sniffled and hiccuped again, wondering what game Jude is playing with her mind.
She stood there, the breeze from the trees barely touching her as she stopped herself from crying again.
Then, she turned around to return to the car, but there he was…
Behind her.
Tobias.
He stood behind her, right there.
A white unbuttoned shirt which revealed his chest in the middle, and equal color of pants, spotless.
Her breaths hitched, and her lips shook when she opened to talk.
She couldn’t even move, so he moved closer to her, lifted his hand to her cheeks and wiped the remaining tears the breeze couldn’t lick.
“I’m sorry I made you cry…” He genuinely whispered.
She shifted away.
“You… you’re…you’re not…”
“Something had to be done about your avoidance,” he opened up.
She blinked back, realizing.
“You….made me lost my mind because of that? You made me nearly die cos of my avoidance? You…”
“Don’t say it like it’s that easy, Sera.” He frowned. “You AVOIDED me!”
“And why would my avoidance rattle you so much that you had to make this whole spectacle of dea—”
“‘Cause I can’t fucking take it!” he exploded.
The words ripped out of him before he could cage them, his chest heaving so violently it looked painful.
“I can’t survive the slightest distance from you. Let the rest of the world ignore me, let them erase me, curse me, bury me, I don’t care. But you?” His voice became frighteningly raw. “You don’t get to disappear from me.”
The laugh that followed from him was hollow, almost sick.
“You have no idea how many breaths I’ve counted waiting for you to look at me again. Do you know what silence sounds like when it wears your face? Like a coffin closing!”
His breathing grew harsher with every word. Seraphina’s own lungs forgot how to work.
In one swift movement, he caught her wrist and pressed her palm flat against his chest. His heart slammed violently beneath it.
“Feel it, hear it. You think you’re the only one whose heart loses its damn mind?” His voice broke into a whisper. “Mine forgets how to beat the second you pull away. I can’t breathe when you avoid me, Sera. I can’t fucking breathe!”
“I want you in every version of my life. In my mornings, my nightmares, in the ugly parts of me no one survives seeing,”
His forehead almost touched hers as he leaned, breathings fast and desperate. “Look at me, just… look at me alone. I don’t want to become something even worse than I already am. I don’t want to be the monster that walks through the city tearing out strangers eyes because they held your gaze a second too long.”
“And yes… I’m jealous.” A bitter smile ghosted over his lips. “So don’t tell me the sunset is beautiful.”
His thumb brushed her soft cheek, and his breaths shook. “Don’t tell me a song is perfect, don’t you dare tell me pasta tastes like heaven when I’m supposed to be the only heaven and the only hell you’ll ever need!”
Silence stretched tightly between them. Seraphina could barely recognize the rhythm of her own heartbeat. Every restraint she built inside herself was splintering.
Her lips parted, and her voice came out fractured.
“Why…..why are you telling me this?”
His eyes softened, fucking hers.
“Because i’ve felt you longer than I’ve allowed myself to admit. Since the day you walked down that aisle beside my brother. I looked at you, then deceived myself to look away like you were nothing but a breeze I thought if I didn’t stare too long, whatever I felt would die.”
“But it didn’t, it rooted itself inside me and poisoned everything. And you know the worst part?” His eyes glistened. “You are poison, the kind a man drinks only once and spends the rest of his life craving.”
Seraphina felt something inside her split clean open beautifully like a cage finally giving up.
His hands cupped her face as though she was something breakable, then he lowered himself until only inches separated them.
A sad smile touched his lips “I’ll always belong to you, Sera.”
Seraphina stared at him through trembling eyes, through slamming chest..”Tobias…” The name escaped her like a prayer.
He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, and a humorless chuckle left him before he opened them again
“I suppose this is where a sane man says he loves you.”
Seraphina’s heartbeats picked up again, spiked beyond her reach, boiling inside her noisy ears.
“I’m not sane,” he murmured. “But I love you with every ugly part of me.”
His fingers brushed a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.
“Choose me, Sera. Will you be my girlfriend, officially?”
TBC.
{{comment.anon_name ?? comment.full_name}}
{{timeAgo(comment.date_added)}}
{{comment.body}}
{{subComment.anon_name ?? subComment.full_name}}
{{timeAgo(subComment.date_added)}}
{{subComment.body}}