Gael felt deflated when Angela’s door slammed shut. The image of her on the verge of crying kept playing in his head. Did he do that to her?

Even when he already went back to his own room, he couldn’t shake the image away. He thought of many possibilities why she looked hurt, and when he recalled about the man he saw with her earlier, his thoughts went feral.

His head snapped to the side and without thinking much, he was already on his way to the door. That bastard wouldn’t have done something to her, would he?

Just as his hand reached for the door, he heard a sound from outside.

“Angela?” *knock* “Angela, it’s Francis.” *knock* “I got your message. Are you really okay? You should’ve told me if you weren’t feeling well.”

There was silence as Gael was anticipating what she would do at this point. But he didn’t hear any movements from the other room.

“Listen… I know it’s too early, but I really like you. If you’re-”

“For fuck’s sake, you’re a nuisance!” Gael swung the door open and barked at Francis. “You’re disturbing everyone! Get the fuck outta here!”

Francis was petrified by Gael’s dominating presence that he couldn’t say anything after that. Looking at Angela’s door one more time, he sighed, turned around, and walked away.

Gael scoffed as he watched the man’s retreating back. He didn’t realize what he did until just now and he cleared his throat as he subtly glanced at her door. He thought of knocking, so he walked up to the front of the door and raised his hand up, but then decided against it. She probably wouldn’t want to see him anyway. Not after what he said to her earlier.

Resigning, he went back to his room and called it a night, hoping she was going to be alright.

…

Angela was on the floor, her back leaning against the bed as she wrapped her arms around her knees and her head resting on them. She didn’t want to think about the painful memories but for two nights in a row that she was reminded of Evan, what happened years ago only caused her to feel hurt. It was as though what happened was still so fresh that her heart bled again.

Growing up without her mother around, Angela Su didn’t really have a proper lady as a role model. The only female she had with her most of the time was Nina and even the latter’s family was also dysfunctional and broken. So no one taught Angela how to take care of her heart. Her brother Oliver wasn’t always around. And when he was in college, they didn’t see each other often. Her father, on the other hand, didn’t know how to raise a lady. Angela’s influences came from her peers around her.

Her mother left when she was very young, too young to remember all the details. She thought her father divorced her mother and then he drove her out of the house. She didn’t know why, and when she asked, her father would just dismiss her questions. Eventually, he banned the ‘questioning’. No one spoke of her mother at home, not even Oliver knew the reason why she left and what happened between their parents.

All of her mother’s pictures were gone. Her father burned them the week that she left their home. But Angela managed to salvage one of them when her father turned his back. The old photograph had yellowed and had burnt edges but she kept it like a treasure, afraid that she would forget how her mother looked like.

It had been years since the last time that she took a peek of that picture. She stopped looking at it because the more that she did, the more that she would feel sad and her heart would ache. Then, she got used to her mother being gone… And then she forgot about how it was to have a mother. Now, there’s just a void in her heart, and she didn’t know if that would ever heal.

Because of her childhood, she became who she was now. She was indecisive, and most of the time didn’t really know what she wanted in life. That wasn’t until she learned how she loved to write, but that didn’t come until later in her life. It was the only thing that she actually became so passionate about, only to have her father go against it.

Angela wasn’t hard to please. She would smile and laugh with just the simplest of things in life. And she would hurt just as fast as well.

“Falling in love is the best feeling ever!” she heard from her friends.

It got her curious. What was it to fall in love? How great was it for everyone to be looking for it and desperately wanting it to happen to them?

Her curiosity made her become a hopeless romantic herself. Despite having a broken family, Angela wanted to find love for herself, wanting to see what everyone was hyping about. However, she didn’t force herself to look for it. No. But she dated a lot, liking the thought that what if one of the guys she would spend a meal with or the day with would be ‘the one’.

Until she got entangled with Evan Leos—the mixed-race hunk of a marine who was persistent in pursuing her. When they first started to date just casually, she didn’t think much of it. Liking Evan wasn’t hard, but Angela couldn’t tell if she had ever fallen in love with him—maybe she started to. He was really handsome though, but there was a part of her that was hesitant in giving her all to him, especially since he wasn’t always around.

And six years ago, Evan stayed a little longer than he normally did in the past, which only meant that they could spend more time together. It was only then that she learned who he really was… with his family… his friends… and her.

If she knew… if only someone had warned her. She would have walked out and never looked back.