Chapter 103
Irene’s POV
Eva’s words were a sudden thundering light, shattering the fragile moment of peace I had just started to rebuild with Damien. My head snapped toward her, my heart beating wildly and the panic in her eyes fueling my own fear. Damien unwrapped his arm around me, stepped back, and he kept staring at Eva.
“Eva. What do you mean?” Damien asked, his voice controlled but tense and terrified.
Eva’s chest rose and fell with frantic breaths, and for once, there wasn’t a hint of manipulation in her face. It was just pure fear. “Lenora,” she said again, her voice trembling.
“She’s in the bathroom with a knife, Damien! I think she’s going to do something horrible. You need to come. Now!” The urgency in Eva’s voice was enough to make my blood run cold as the words sank in.
Lenora? The same Lenora that had always kept her composure? That despite everything, managed to hold her head high? Put on a smile and make others laugh? Could she really be at that point of desperation?
Damien didn’t wait for another second to pass by. Without a word, he dashed out of the room, his footsteps thundering down the hallway, while Eva stood frozen in the doorway, her eyes filled with uncertainty.
I immediately followed him, my mind spinning as I tried to make sense of what was happening.
How did things quickly spiral with Lenora? Or has she been dealing with other things without others knowing? Was all that smiles and freeness a facade?
Had I been too caught up in my own chaos to notice her falling apart?
The moment we reached the bathroom at the end of the hallway, Damien began pounding heavily on the door.
“Lenora! Open the door!” He shouted, his rough voice etched with worry.
But there was no reply, just the muffled sound of movement inside. My heart squeezed hard as I imagined her on the other side, sitting in the bathroom with a knife, with the thoughts of ending everything. I clasped my hand over my mouth as dread rose in my throat like bile.
“Lenora! Please!” Damien pounded again, harder this time.
I stood beside him, speechless. I wanted to do something, say something, anything at all that could stop this nightmare from becoming worse.
“Lenora,” I called out softly, trying to keep my voice steady. “Please, open the door. We can talk about this. Please,” I begged.
For a few seconds, all I could hear was silence. Then after a few more seconds, a faint sound came from the other side of the door. A sobbing sound.
I could barely make out the sound, but it was enough to ease the tension in my chest.
“I’m sorry,” Lenora finally said, but her voice sounded raw and broken. “I can’t–I can’t do this anymore“, she stammered.
“You don’t have to do anything, Lenora. Just open the door, okay? We’ll figure this out.” Damien’s fists clenched at his sides, and I could see the desperation to save his sister in his eyes.
There was another silence, but then the door clicked open. And it was just enough for us to see Lenora sitting on the bathroom floor, her back against the tub, a knife recklessly clutched in her trembling hand.
Tears strolled down her face, and her whole body quaked as though she had been holding herself together for far too long.
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1504 Inu,
Chapter 103
“Lenora,” Damien breathed, relief flooding his voice as he carefully approached her.
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“Give me the knife, okay? You don’t need it. We’re here for you.” He knelt beside her, his hand reaching out slowly, gently.
Lenora’s eyes flickered between Damien and me, her expression filled with anguish. “It’s too much,” she whispered, her voice was so fragile it nearly broke me.
“I’ve ruined everything.” She sobbed even more.
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“No, you haven’t,” I quickly said, stepping closer, my voice steady despite the fear clawing at my insides. “We can fix this. We just need to talk.”
And for a moment, I thought she was about to hand over the knife. Her fingers loosened on the handle, her sobs grew quieter. But suddenly like a switch, her gaze hardened, and she looked at me with a venom I had never seen before in her
eyes..
“You,” she screamed, her voice filled with rage. “This is your fault.”
I froze, the words cutting through me like a blade.
My fault?
“You ruined everything,” she continued before I could even comprehend her first accusation.
Her voice increased in volume as her anger surged. “If it weren’t for you, none of this would’ve happened. My life was fine before you came along. Before you took Damien away. Before you made everything about you!”
Her words felt like a stab, each one sinking deeper into me as I stood there, listening to the words she spouted, totally stunned and unexpected.
“Lenora…. I didn’t-” I tried to say but she cut me off.
“You didn’t what?!” she snapped, her expression contorting with bitterness. “You didn’t break up this family? You didn’t push us all to the edge? You didn’t make me feel like I was losing everything I cared about?” She queried as if she had a deep hate seethed within her for me all this while.
Damien stood frozen beside her, his hand still stretched out for the knife, but his eyes were on me now, widened with shock. “Lenora, you know that this isn’t her fault-”
“Yes, it is!” she shrieked, her body shaking with the intensity of her emotions.
“I’ve been holding it together for so long, pretending that everything was alright. But it isn’t. It has never been fine since this woman came into our lives. And now, everything is falling apart. She exclaimed, her veins popping in her neck.
And I wanted to argue so badly, to tell her she was wrong. That I hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. But the truth was, I didn’t know how to make things right anymore.
It felt as though the ground had been diminishing beneath my feet for so long that I couldn’t tell where the cracks had started from in the first place.
“I never wanted this,” I whispered quietly, hoping they could all hear me. “I never wanted to hurt anyone.” And that was the truth. It was never my intention. My story with Damien wasn’t something I had planned.
Lenora’s face scrunched with pain, and for a moment, it looked like she might completely shatter.
But then her grip on the knife tightened again, and her gaze locked onto mine, filled with a hatred I couldn’t understand.
“You just ruined my life, Irene,” she growled, her voice cold and final. “And I will never forgive you for it!”
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