Chapter 37: Chapter 37

Athena’s P.O.V.

“So… what did you say?” I hated myself now for asking him questions that I could not help but ask in the first place. If only I could literally zip my mouth, I already did it.

“What did I tell her? Hmm…” He stared at me menacingly before he smiled so foolishly. “That I already have you… my Helena.”

My eyes got widened, and out of my extreme shock, I spanked his chest so loud. In fairness, for a sixteen-year-old teenager, it was kind of tough! I wanted to hear straight from his mouth that he did not love Vanessa anymore, but I would have never expected what he said either.

“Hey! I’m just kidding, Helena. Look, you’re blushing. It makes me think that I should have really told Vanessa about it,” he mocked me, provoking me again.

Tight-lipped, I ignored him. I would not speak to him if he would not take my questions seriously.

“Okay… I’ll be serious. While talking to her, I tried to find within my heart the same attraction that I felt for her before, but honestly, I could not feel even just a little bit. I told her to just forget about her feelings because I could no longer reciprocate her love anymore—giving her a formal closure. How about you, Helena? Have you ever experienced love? Have you ever had a boyfriend?” He opened a kind of topic I wasn’t even interested in.

I rolled my eyes at him. “When my twin sister died, I already lost my closest ally, so I ended up loving myself. I also did not experience having a boyfriend. I was only fifteen, Cristoff, and I have never thought of such things. Maybe because I don’t want to hurt someone, and I also don’t want to be hurt in the process. To cut it short, I don’t have time to get enslaved by love,” I bluntly said.

“Why don’t we t-try?” he asked, which made me raise my left eyebrow.

“T-Try what?” I furrowed. At the same time, something within me lurched. I thought I heard him wrong.

He warmly held my hands and looked at my face breathtakingly. I did not know why I suddenly got so nervous—and that made my heart thump as fast as it could. “You know, us? The two of us? Who knows, we can be together, like l-lovers?”

What Cristoff suggested was like an exploding bomb that almost deafened my ears. My eyes could even come out of their sockets due to disbelief that I ended up pushing him away from me.

“Hello! Are you okay, Cristoff? Like what the hell are you talking about, huh? Do you understand what you are telling me right now? We are not even friends, so how can we be together? And how could we treat each other as lovers? I could not imagine if it would work for us! Besides, there were lots of things that you still don’t know about me—” I was not yet done responding to him when he swiftly cut me off.

“I like you, Helena. I like you so much, and I don’t want to believe your lies this morning. My heart tells me that you were the one who accepted my friend request, and you were the one who had seen my message. Tell me, how can one ask her personal assistant to take care of her social media accounts?”

Oops, just when I thought I already tricked him. I was wrong!

He paused for a while before he continued. “But, I’m sorry for lying too. I might have accidentally sent that message to you, but that would never be a joke, Helena—that’s the truth. I didn’t know when, I didn’t know how. I like you, and I think I’m starting to fall for you. Even if I didn’t know much about you, I don’t care! It would never change the fact that I like you.”

It felt differently after hearing those words coming out from his mouth than simply reading it over my Mezzenger account. Most especially, when his eyes were expressing more than his mouth. My excitement grew even more until it became so intense it just made me scared about us.

I averted my glances again. I could not look straight into his eyes, or else I might just give in to him. Even though I already fell in love with him, I did not want to enter into a relationship without any certainty. Perplexed about how things went too fast, I moved away from him.

“You are not sure about how you really feel for me, Cristoff. You were only telling those things because I was with you right now. But you know what? I don’t want to become a third-party, and I would not allow you to use me just to cover your true feelings for Vanessa.” That was all I could say.

It came from me, but I, myself, would not want to accept it either. I wanted to cringe the moment I spoke those words because I did not want to accept that Cristoff might still have feelings for his lewd ex-girlfriend.

All my life, I was only insecure about my twin. I didn’t want to get insecure with Vanessa because she doesn’t even deserve it. I didn’t want to stoop down and get jealous of that whore, because I knew that in every aspect, I was better than her.

“I’m sorry if that’s what you think, but I feel nothing for her anymore. I’m sorry too, Helena, if things were getting too fast, that my confession only brought you shock but that’s the truth. You asked me earlier why I looked for you and why would I even worry about you, right? I like you, would that reason be enough? And I am ready and would be willing to take all the risks just to find you, Helena.” He was teary-eyed as he moved closer to me and embraced me again, but this time, he was clasping me even tighter as if he was afraid to let me go.

Quivers began to envelop me as unexplainable shivers went down my whole system. I shrugged and was about to remove his arms when…

“Please, just let me hug you like this. Maybe, time will come that I would never hug you like this ever again,” he pleaded.

Thinking that Cristoff was only taking advantage of me, I should have pushed him away. But I ended up loving the feeling and did not object to what he was doing to me. The fact that he followed me here, even though he knew it was too risky and unsafe for him to look around in this forest, meant that he was a nice person. And at these times, I felt like melting at all and succumbing to my emotions.

Had Cristoff not come, what could have happened to me?

Closing my eyes tightly, I shook my head as I could not imagine the possible answers to my question. Because of that, my hands slowly wrapped him in return until my hugs finally tightened on his torso.

Now that we were skin to skin, I could sense that Cristoff felt a little surprised about what I did. We had been in that position for a few minutes. Sometimes, by pretending to be Helena, I felt becoming more and more bipolar—to the point that I could no longer seem to know myself. I felt like I matured too far from that Athena way back then.

That Athena who doesn’t know how to love because she had a heart made of stone. That Athena who was only rebellious and self-centered. That Athena who would never love in return.

But can Cristoff say my real name while he was telling me that he likes me? Can he say, ‘I like you, Athena,’ even for once?

The thought made me blink back my light tears from falling. I guessed that there would never be ways for Cristoff to learn about my real name.

After a few minutes, he unwrapped his arms around me, and I did the same thing. He looked at me, and we looked at each other under the stunning moonlight. For me, his face was the most beautiful scene I saw tonight. His long eyelashes kept on drawing me in. His lips were naturally red too—making me anticipate something.

He was so angelic—such a significant thing that ever happened to me. I did not know why, but I was certain that he was remarkably infatuated by me just by sincerely looking at his brown eyes. His eyes were scintillating, most especially when he looked at my lips. It was as if he was melting. I got so shy, and that made me bow my head.

“H-Helena…” Cristoff lifted my face using his index finger placed under my chin, and that made me look at him straight in the eyes again.

“C-Cristoff…” I meekly whispered. It felt like I was suddenly lost for words.

He slowly brought his face closer until we were only an inch apart. At the same time, I did not know why I gradually closed my eyes and just let him do whatever he wanted.

He cupped my face until I felt his trembling lips carefully pressing on mine—afraid that he might hurt me as I assumed. I liked the warmth of his lips. I really do. I did not object, nor refused.

We just stayed this way, for I guessed, two minutes? It was not long enough that Cristoff’s hands roamed down my jaws to the neck.

Later on, my heart fluttered as my mind wavered when I felt that his kisses deepened. Those became torrid, and I just found myself responding to each of them.