30. HATE & BETRAYAL

ACT FIVE SCENE FOUR

HATE & BETRAYAL

sahar glacé

PERSPECTIVE

IF THERE WAS ONE THING you could ever have, what would it be? My wish would be to meet my mother one last time and ask her why it's so hard to communicate with people. We're supposed to understand each other, to trust without second thoughts but why do all the people I seem to trust leave me. I never have bad intentions about anyone, I always want to believe there's something good in them but they turn around and stab me in the back - causing me to internally bleed, bleed and bleed and never recover.

It's in my blood to just trust without questioning loyalty.

Here I am at the party of a boy I seemed to see good in with friends I thought were good. What if he turns around and hurts me? What would I do then? Would I let him get the best of me and endlessly believe that there's still some good left in him? It's true that Luca Valdez is nice but he's only nice to people that benefit him and yet I'm not sure why I benefit him. I want to know why he's attached to me.

"Is there something wrong?"

Luca's question causes me to smile. "No, nothing's wrong." my response causes him to smile. I frown, how is he smiling when he knows what's going to happen to him? Why doesn't he show his true emotions, why does he bother hiding it from me?

"You're going to get engaged today."

"I know." he responds curtly. But on that stage today, he didn't seem happy.

"But you ran off after telling people that."

"I didn't run, I walked away, there's a difference." he says calmly, the smile remains on his face. I know he's hurting but why does he have to pretend with me. Am I not his friend? I want to be treated like a friend. I don't want to blindly believe in him, for once, I want to second guess and make him feel better.

"But you sounded sad..."

"But I'm happy now." Luca says, his words did not match his actions. His shoulders were slumped and his eyes were dull.

"So you don't care about getting engaged today? "

My question causes him to nod his head. "It's not a bad thing, right?"

"But to you, it's a bad thing, you're clearly upset, why don't you stop it?" I ask him.

"I told you I'm happy, why don't you just listen to what I say and stop assuming how I feel?" he says, glancing at me. "You never second guess my emotions, what happened now? Why are you being so... nosey?" his words cause me to look at him with disappointment. So he prefers me to listen to him and ignore how he really feels. He doesn't want me to second guess, he just prefers me to be obedient and careless about his emotions.

I chuckle. "So you don't want me to care about how you feel? You just want me to stand here and listen to you and do nothing."

"Is there a problem? I'm telling you how I feel and you're trying to say I'm lying."

"You should know better Luca, it's easy to notice how a person like you is really feeling. You're an open book to me, I can tell when you're upset." I say, glancing down. "It's really sad that you're lying to me, I thought we were friends and friends are supposed to be truthful with each other." my words cause Luca to take a step back.

"What do you want to hear Sahar? Do you want to hear me say that I hate my life, that I want to run away and never see anyone ever again? Do you really want to know my true feelings that bad, do you really want to hear everything I have to say because I know you can't, nobody can't and I'm sorry, I don't think we're at that stage of friendship where I can easily tell you things that are on my mind." he says, turning away. Leaving me to watch his figure fade away into the crowd.

He's wrong. I could listen to him for hours. I want to understand him and his problems. When you become friends with someone you have to accept that their problems come with them. You can't ignore their flaws. Friendship is about acceptance, not ignorance.

He's clearly upset and I made him feel worse. It wasn't right to talk about the thing that's making him upset. But he needs to understand that we can't run away from our problems forever, we need to be optimistic and face them without doubts. I won't let Luca go through this on his birthday and the only person that could stop this was his mother.

His father would listen to his mother in an instant.

His mother brings back bad memories for me. She's the reason why I had a horrible childhood. She took away my rights as a daughter, she took my mother just to separate me from her son who showed an interest in me. How could someone be so ill minded? My mother deserved everything in this world, but this lady treated her horribly, taking every chance to abuse my mother for committing the smallest actions. I have evidence, evidence that could ruin this lady. I'm a witness and so is that man who works as their chauffeur. I know that blackmail is considered as bad but to me, it isn't bad when you're using it against a bad person to prevent horrible things from happening.

I'll convince her tonight.

No matter what.

I scan the hall, looking for Luca's mother. She was a pretty slender woman, she didn't seem to age, it's as if time stopped just for her. But just because someone was beautiful on the outside, it doesn't mean that they're beautiful in the inside too. She was rotten, her thoughts were crude and the way she spoke down to people was disgusting. A woman like her has no dignity. To me, she was ugly - everything about her disgusted me. Even if she's the mother of Luca, she had no motherly aspects about her. A cunning person like her could never be a real mother.

And that's when I spot her.

She's holding a glass of champagne as she spoke to highly affluent people. She had a pretty smile on her face as she held on to her silk dress to prevent it from touching the ground. I walk closer towards her, I was feeling a rush of confidence. But that's until someone pulls me back roughly, preventing me from going near her.

"Are you insane?" my heart froze. Asher had his hand wrapped around my wrist as he looked at me with an incredulous look. His gaze was just enough to stop me breathing for a second, I suddenly felt the urge to walk away - my confidence was long gone, my mind was filled with thoughts about Asher. I hated how much my mind seemed to prioritise him,  I couldn't understand what seemed so special about him that my brain couldn't seem to function properly around him.

"I said. Are you insane?" he repeats, his words filled with ice.

"I hate this," I whisper, glancing up at him. "I hate that this how we are now." Asher's breath hitches as he meets my gaze, he covers up his expression in an instance.

He ignores what I said. "Talking to her will solve nothing," he states, glancing at Luca's mother. "So leave, nobody wants you here." his words cause me to frown, of course, he'd say that without any expression.

"You don't want me here. But I'm not here for you, but for Luca." I say, Asher glances down at me.

"Did I ask you a question? It's an order, leave before you ruin everything." he says bitterly, pulling me towards the exit.

"What's wrong with you? Why do you hate me so much now? I apologised and tried to tell you that everything's a misunderstanding, just... please accept my apology. I want everything to be normal, why don't you want that to happen, Asher!" I exclaim, I've never met someone with such complex emotions. He was difficult to understand, so difficult to communicate with.

"Because." he moves closer towards me.

"I don't like you." his words slice through my heart.

"People I don't like are useless, annoying and a waste of time." his words were like bullets, piercing through me like nothing.

"And lucky for you, you're the first person that I'll say this to."

"I hate you, Sahar." his words were enough to force tears to cascade down my face.

"I hate you to the point I can't stand seeing your face, I hate you that I can't stand hearing your name and lastly, I hate you for betraying me - do everyone a favour and disappear because that's what you're best at right? Leaving when someone needs you the most, you're the worst kind of person, a person like you makes me think too much... I hate you for being you, I hate that you pretend to care when you really don't." his last words turned into a whisper as he gazes deep into my eyes.

"Don't cry."

His words cause me to push him away from me. "Who are you to tell me that!" I say tearfully, he destroyed everything inside of me. "I can cry, I can do what I want, I'm a person too, you can't pretend not to notice how much your words can impact a person."

Asher remains silent.

"You don't know what goes on in my life, you don't know me, how could you tell me that you hate me for being myself when I don't even know who I am!" I hit his chest, he simply stands there. "I cared so much about you, my feelings, the things I told you were true. I just wanted you to be happy, I tried so much to help you express yourself more - I liked listening to you, I liked talking to you and most important of all... I respected you to the point I couldn't hurt you or any of your club members. I was ready to give up everything just to make you happy, I was going to read the speech and confess to something I didn't even do."

"But someone told me that they couldn't watch me leave. So I stayed and wanted to prove you wrong but now that I think about it, what's the point? There's no point of proving you wrong because you refuse to listen to me." I mumble.

"I really thought I knew you." I say quietly.

"Are you done crying?" Asher questions, his face remaining blank.

I laugh. "I guess you don't care."

Asher glances at me. "I never did."

"I don't know why I ever thought I could change the way you are, you'll always remain as arrogant as ever, you're so in love with yourself you don't realise how the people around you feel."

"I don't care about anyone, if you're done talking, you can leave."

"I'll never be done." my words cause him to sigh.

"Don't you understand, you're no help, you're just making my life hard." he snaps, pushing me towards the exit. "I don't care about you, I don't want to hear your side of the story, you betray people and use them until you get what you want."

"I don't use people if anyone uses people, it's you!"

"And what's your explanation for that? Tell me how I use people Sahar." he says, waiting for my response.

"You used me that night two years ago, you slept with me and never spoke to me ever since." I say, Asher simply looks at me with a smile.

"I know." his words were shallow.

"I-I hate you."

Asher doesn't respond, slamming the door on my face.

third person

perspective

Asher takes a deep breath as he watched Sahar drive off. He didn't want to do this. Jumin told him to be the good guy and he knows that Sahar will never speak to him after this. This is all for Luca, that's all that repeats in his head. He didn't like Sahar, he didn't like her at all. His mind drifts back to what she told him. You used me. He smiles sadly, it was the other way around. She used him, she broke his heart, she was a factor that forced him to be arrogant and selfish.

| FLASHBACK TWO YEARS AGO |

ASHER AND SAHAR WERE classmates. She sat across him and spoke to him occasionally. Asher liked her, she was someone different, being the new girl in school she seemed so down to earth even though she was rich. This was before he became a billionaire bad boys club member, a time period where he wasn't selfish or arrogant.

Little did Asher know, Sahar had a tiny crush on him. She was too nervous to tell him her feelings, after all, the kid was a millionaire soon to be a billionaire in a few years. So she forced herself to believe that she didn't like his personality but she liked the way he looked. She was infatuated by his looks nothing else.

A few weeks later, Sahar had decided to try sleep with him to get rid of her thoughts and little crush. She heard many rumours from girls that Asher was a player and into one night stands, she realised that he couldn't like her if he treated girls like that.

She wore a satin red dress to the party that was hosted by Asher. She was going to approach him and get rid of these feelings once and for all.

"Hey, Asher," Sahar says, her appearance causes a smile to form on Asher's face.

"Sahar, I didn't think I'd see you her--" but before Asher could continue, Sahar had pulled him closer towards her. Asher felt his cheeks burning, he was so close, so close to the girl he likes. She presses her lips against his, he freezes. He was shocked, he didn't think she'd be so upfront with the way she felt for him.

"W-What." Asher stammers, glancing up at the pretty girl in front of him.

"Let's go upstairs." her words cause Asher to widen his eyes.

A few moments later, they were in Asher's room.

"Are you sure?" he asks, pulling away from Sahar. He was unsure.

"I am." she smiles, Asher couldn't resist that smile.

"I guess if that's what you want, I can't say no." he rubs the back of his neck nervously.

Sahar pulls him closer, placing her lips on his.

Sahar glances at Asher who was laying on the bed beside her. She smiles, he looks so innocent. She felt her heart rate, she could still feel it beating rapidly. It wasn't just infatuation, she didn't like him for his looks. She liked him for him. But he doesn't care, from now on she'll just be another girl he just slept with. She felt cheap and worthless, it was dumb to think that sleeping with the boy could change the way she felt about him.

She stands up, placing on her dress. He won't remember this anyway.

She leaves Asher alone in the room.

Asher shifts his body to the other side of the bed, expecting to see Sahar.

But she wasn't there.

Asher runs a hand through his hair. He didn't expect her to leave. He thought she'd stay.

Asher pulls a pillow closer to his body. He has never imagined her to leave without a word. She probably heard about the rumours about him and girls. She believed them without realising the truth.

He frowns as he stared up at his wall blankly.

Sahar took his virginity.

| END OF FLASHBACK |

well this shows a lot about asher and his feelings. what are your opinions? do you feel bad for sahar or asher? what about luca? do you guys have any ships?

vote, comment, and share! thank you for 88k reads! it means so much to me :)