Chapter 381 - The Hard Choice

I'm sorry.

Nothing else seemed like the right thing to say. Nothing else felt like the right words to use.

I wasted all that effort and time, I'm sorry.

I just wasn't good enough, I'm sorry.

I woke up.

I'm sorry. 

Maybe I've let the hero mindset fester in my head for too long already, and perhaps I might have let my prior achievements lull me into this false sense of bravado, confidence, and security… had me thinking I could take on the world if I just believed hard enough that I could. 

Genuinely, there wasn't a doubt in my mind for even a second that I couldn't get Ria to wake up. I was convinced forthright that no matter what it took, no matter what needed to be said, that one of these days eventually, when I wake up to the rays of the morning sun again, that she'll be there squinting and shielding her eyes from the glare alongside me.

Instead, there I was approaching that cliff's edge at a slow willing pace, taking that final step forward that never met the ground. Instead, I looked at her. 

Instead… I said sorry.

Sera was the first and for a brief period the only thing that my bleary, weary eyes could see as they slowly fluttered open. The ever-mystical golden luminescence of her gaze would only be overshadowed by the orange glow of sunlight piercing through the branches and leaves.

This whole entire time, I suspect, throughout the whole entire night, she had been by my side with her palm pressed up against my forehead. 

When she saw me stirring, I caught a glimmer of surprise flurrying within her eyes. From that, I knew she didn't expect me waking so soon, and much less even… waking alone. 

She directed her confusion to the unconscious Ria by her side, where her other hand also rested inches beneath her smoldering locks. I watched, slowly pulling myself up, as the confusion further intensified, and it wasn't long after that she was staring back at me again - asking the one question that didn't need words to be heard.

What happened?

Once more, nothing else seemed like the right thing to say, besides those words again -  I'm sorry. 

But instead of being disgruntled, frustrated, or even outright annoyed at my downright show of incompetence, Sera just casually nudged her head to the side and pointed a finger to the flattened bed of grass where my head once rested. 

"Try again," spoke the glimmer of resolve deeply embedded in her gaze. "Don't give up yet." 

She doesn't know, this wasn't about trying again, neither was it about giving up. It's a shame too, the first time she's ever shown any hint of encouragement and comfort towards me, and I went ahead and wasted it. 

Another thing to be sorry for.

"No, it's okay," I said to her. I could feel the effort it took for my lips to even form those words. I still couldn't believe I was saying it. "There's no need." 

That's when her confusion finally reached its peak, taking form in a loud grunt slipping through the flutter of her violet veil. The prominent furrow in her brow demanded an explanation.

I didn't know exactly how I even managed to explain everything that transpired to her. Everything just sorta blended into each other, just a culmination of things just passing by me like gentle waves in the sea. I was on autopilot, my mind a billion, trillion miles elsewhere, so I highly doubt I was even explaining things well.

"She wanted to stay," was what I heard myself say, my focus only returning at the end of the tale, all the while never once realizing that my glazed gaze had drifted over to the dim pulsating crimson glow in the grass. "And I decided that maybe… maybe she should after all."

Gauging Sera's thoughts on the matter wasn't easy when all you had to go off of were her eyes staring stone-cold and expressionless. 

I didn't know what she thought of me now for making the choices that I did, whether she thinks me foolish, spineless… or whatever-ish, but I do know without a doubt she couldn't be at all pleased that all her efforts were in vain just because a certain somebody seemingly decided to change his mind like he was flipping a dime.

So I tried to rectify matters, recalling her words spoken through my lips just moments before I went under.

"I'll still honor our agreement, you don't have to worry," I said to her, although at that moment in time I wasn't particularly invested in it. "You did your part, so… something about a deal change, right? Well then, I'm all ears. What is it?" 

But apparently, to my disbelief, neither was she. 

After hearing what I had to say, Sera turned tail and with a whirl of her cloak, she disappeared into the bushes, effortlessly drifting through the trees. I didn't try to stop her, I knew her well enough to know what her leaving abruptly implied. 

"Later," scrunched her fading footsteps gradually growing distant and silent, meaning to say, I'll just find out some other time… in her own time, I guess. I suppose she needed rest. 

Works for me.

In the meantime, my knees still pressing in the dirt, I pulled out my phone… flicking it on, and was instantly taken aback being met with an abundance of missed calls and messages from a number I didn't immediately recognize right away. 

After a bit of squinting and scrunching, and some text-opening, I finally realized it had been Nick all along that was ringing and buzzing. 

I missed my shift. 

Just look at that, what a model employee I am… waking up and forgetting he even had a job to go to on the first week on the job. Another sorry to give… and I should be so lucky if I ever hear the end of it from that behemoth of a manager.

But it wasn't him that I was scrolling down around in my contacts for. After all, I wasn't done apologizing yet.

There was still somebody that needed to be informed, somebody that needed to hear my sorries.

I stopped at the name, stared silently at it for a long, long while… before I gave it a tap, and the display flashed the name even bigger, as the sound of the dial tone blared through the speaker.

<<Irene>>