Pregnant Mistress Can't Get Away

2. STELLA

“You know what I want, Stella,” she says, almost inaudibly, as if she doesn’t want to say it out loud. “I don’t know why you insist on playing stupid every time we talk about this.”

I let out a sigh and shake my head even though she can’t see it.

“No.” I tell her sternly. “Not happening.”

“It’s the only thing that will me make me happy.”

“I know. But we can’t. Bastian will—”

“Bastian is a son of a b***h! He’s an asshole! He treats you like trash! So why the f**k do you listen to him?!” she snaps at me. I hear her take in a deep breath. “He’s the one who’s putting you in this situation where you’re forced to make such choices between me and your freedom. Why the hell are you letting him do that? He’s nothing, Stella! Nothing! Why the hell does he get to dictate the terms? I hate it! I hate what he’s doing to you!”

“It’s nothing,” I have said these words so many times now that I don’t even believe myself anymore, but I continue. “It’s a job, Raya. Just think of it as one. He pays me well and it’s not like I can’t leave any time I want to.”

“That’s a f*****g lie! And we both know it.”

I remain quiet.

I’m lying to myself and to everyone around me. But that’s how life works. We tell lies, we become them and we stick to them.

“Look, Stella, you can say anything you want. I’m dying here. I’ve lost everything in my life and there’s nothing for me to look forward to except the day that I die, which is what I’m doing by the way, waiting to die. But you know what kills me more than anything else?” she continues when I say nothing. “It’s you. My sister. My own flesh and blood. Selling her life for some sick bastard just so that I can get treated for this stupid disease.”

I shake my head again and close my eyes to block out the tears that threaten to fall.

I’ve had this same argument with her, so many times already that I have lost count, and yet, she refuses to understand the reason behind my choices.

I still curse the day I told her where the money for her treatment was coming from.

I didn’t plan on it, of course.

I was hoping to keep it a secret, not something she needed to know to get better. But the moment I walked into her room and pretended to be excited over the new job I got, she just looked at me and knew. She knew I had done something terrible. And then she just broke down in front of me and told me to quit. To find some other way of paying for her treatment.

But that wasn’t an option for me. I mean, I have tried so many other ways already. I had applied to countless companies, but no one would hire me without experience, even though I was a quick learner and had worked hard in high school to make myself look like an overachiever. And if by any chance, someone did give me an opportunity, the salary was just not enough.

“Stella?” my sister calls when I say nothing for a long while and I’m suddenly grateful that she has interrupted me because I can’t find the right words to make her feel better, to make myself feel better, and it’s hard when you don’t believe in what you’re saying.

I take in a deep breath and take out my key card, swiping it across the electronic pad by the side of the elevator door, waiting for the click.

“You don’t need to worry about anything, okay? I know you think that I’m being stupid. That I’m an i***t. But you’re going to get better and when you do, everything’s going to go back to the way it was before. Okay? I promise.”

The elevator doors open directly into my apartment, the living room filled with sunlight from the tall, open windows by the walls and the light-coloured walls giving the place a spacious, open vibe.

“It doesn’t work that way, Stella. Nothing is going to be the same ever again.”

The call ends right there and then. I pull my phone away and look at the screen as the doors close again.

That was definitely one depressing conversation.

I let out a deep sigh. But what else can I expect?

My sister has been sick since I was fourteen, which is about eight years ago now. It’s been so long that I don’t think I remember a day without her illness hanging above her head like a guillotine ready to cut her head off the moment her health fails.

We lost our parents in an accident when I was thirteen and then we moved in with our grandparents, where, a year later, we got the news that my sister had cancer. It was devastating. It broke us down as a family, destroyed the already weak bond that was barely holding us together, and shattered our world.

Our grandparents gave up on her almost as soon as they heard about it. It was just another blow to a family already so broken that the last thing they could handle was another fight that they were losing before they even tried to win.

My grandparents stopped taking care of her and they sent us to an orphanage.

The doctors had told them that she didn’t have a lot of time left, so it was better for them if they sent her to an orphanage to live her last years without having to deal with her constant pain. They thought they were doing her a favour. That she would die faster if she spent the rest of her time with people who cared for her, but she never died, did she?

She just hung in there for eight years, enduring pain day and night, struggling to stay alive, but I always believed that it wasn’t the treatment or the doctors who made her strong.

I still think it was the anger, the hatred she felt toward our grandparents, for not wanting to have anything to do with us, for leaving her to suffer through all that pain alone. It made her fight for her life and now, finally, her health seems to be getting better.

The treatment seems to be working and the doctors have promised that they’ll have her healed in less than two years. I believe them, although my sister has her own views, which aren’t very positive.

I sigh and throw the key card on the small table near the lobby and head straight toward my bedroom, hoping that a long, hot shower would be enough to erase the exhaustion from my mind, body, and soul.

My phone buzzes with a new text just as I step inside the bathroom.

I quickly take off my clothes and head toward the bathtub, stepping into the warm water. I don’t think much of it, and pick it up from the side table near me to check the message.

The screen comes to life and the first thing I see is a message from Bastian.

“I’ll be there in less than an hour.”

That’s all it says.

That’s all I need to know.

I toss the phone back onto the table and take in a deep breath, sinking deeper into the warm water.