CHAPTER 5: PACKING
1337 Words
As soon as I calmed down, I started packing my things. Meanwhile, Lily went home to talk to her parents to tell them everything—which I consented.
I was supposed to go with her to explain things personally, but she didn’t let me. Instead, she insisted that I should rest.
Really, I don't know what I would do without Lily.
With everything so messed up right now, I was lucky—somehow, someone stayed by my side.
When I finally placed the last piece of clothing in my luggage, I exhaled and closed it.
There wasn’t much.
Ever since I decided to live independently and refused any help from my family, I had been careful with my expenses.
To me, independence meant relying on myself completely—managing my bills, controlling unnecessary spending, and ensuring that every penny went to something essential.
That's why I kept my finances in check, prioritizing necessities over luxuries. And clothes were never a priority.
As long as the ones I owned weren’t torn, patched, or faded beyond recognition, I saw no reason to replace them. Buying new ones felt unnecessary when I could make do with what I had.
Maybe that was why packing didn’t take long.
I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the suitcase in front of me, my fingers gripping the fabric of the bedsheet as I looked around my room.
It wasn’t much. The walls were colored in baby blue with few paintings for aesthetic purposes, the furniture was minimal—a single bed, a small desk, two chairs, and a wooden nightstand.
The closet, half-empty now, still had a few things left behind, but even with everything packed away, the room didn’t feel any different.
I had once been so happy to move here.
I still remember the feeling—the excitement of finally standing on my own two feet, free from my family’s influence.
It didn’t matter how small the space was; it was mine. It was the first thing I had truly stepped into the life I badly wanted.
But now?
Now, it just felt like another place I had to leave behind.
Had everything gone wrong the moment I decided to live alone?
Was my stubbornness—my refusal to follow the path my family had set for me—the reason I ended up like this?
Did I do this to myself?
Did I really deserve this?
All I had ever wanted was to rely on myself and, maybe, just maybe, find someone who would love me for me.
Someone who wouldn’t care about my last name or the privileges that came with it.
But where did that hope go?
It had led me straight into Tyler’s arms, believing that he was different.
That he wasn’t like the others. That he saw me.
And yet, in the end, I was nothing more than a joke to him.
It was a cruel game he played for three years.
Three years of my life wasted on someone who never even saw me as a person.
Maybe I was to blame for this, too.
I let out a bitter sigh, my hands covering my face.
I didn’t know what to do.
All I knew was that I couldn’t stay here any longer.
This place was suffocating—filled with memories I no longer wanted to hold onto.
I just wanted to leave.
And for the first time in years…
I missed my family.
The thought hit me like a punch to the gut.
I had been so determined to prove myself—to show them that I didn’t need their help, that I could survive on my own—that I never once looked back.
But now, sitting in this empty room, feeling more lost than I ever had in my life…
I wanted to go home.
Swallowing hard, I reached for the bottom drawer of my nightstand and pulled it open.
Inside, tucked away beneath old notebooks and forgotten receipts, was a phone.
Not the one I used every day, but an expensive one—one I had barely touched in years.
The only times I ever held it were when I needed it to charge.
But now that I had decided to go back, I needed to contact my family.
I pressed the power button, and the screen flickered to life.
Luckily, I had been charging it frequently enough that I didn’t have to wait.
As the device booted up, a familiar logo appeared—a symbol I hadn’t seen in so long yet knew by heart.
It wasn’t from any phone manufacturer or carrier.
It was our family crest.
A golden emblem of mountains rising high above the name Montemayor.
I touched the logo on the screen with my thumb. It had been so long since I had last seen it that, for a moment, I almost forgot—I belonged to this family.
As the phone finally turned on, a flood of notifications rushed in, filling the screen at an overwhelming speed. Missed calls, unread messages, and system alerts—it was endless.
It took me nearly thirty minutes just to go through the settings and turn off the notifications, just so they would stop flashing across the screen.
Seriously? I knew this was custom-made, but it was worse than the phones on the market.
Who still had a system where messages popped up on the screen instead of neatly at the top?
I should tell them to update this.
Just because we didn’t use these phones frequently didn’t mean they had to slack off on improving them.
Looking at it again, I realized an update wasn’t the only issue. This phone needed a complete overhaul. A new version was necessary.
No, scratch that. It needed to be scrapped entirely and rebuilt from the ground up.
With a sigh, I ignored the flood of notifications cluttering the screen—missed calls, unread messages, and security alerts stacking up like a relentless storm.
I didn’t have the patience to sift through them, nor the courage to see what they said. Instead, I went straight to my contacts, scrolling past names I hadn’t dared to reach out to in years.
There weren’t many.
Just my family and a few key people working under Montemayor.
As I scrolled down, my eyes landed on two names—Mom and Dad—and suddenly, my vision blurred.
I sniffled, biting my lip.
I didn’t know if they were still angry at me.
Or if they even wanted me back.
But I missed them. So much.
Still….I couldn’t bring myself to call.
Not yet.
Not when I had failed them.
I let out a shaky sigh, gripping the phone tighter.
My thumb hovered over their names before I forced myself to scroll further down.
Then, I saw it.
Vicentius Montemayor.
My eldest brother.
The firstborn of the Montemayor family.
The one who carried our name with the most weight, the one who never faltered, never wavered.
He had always been untouchable. Unshakable even.
And I, the third born out of five, had always been a world apart from him.
Still, if there was anyone who would answer my call without hesitation, it would be him even if it had been four years since we last spoke.
Before I could hesitate, I pressed his name.
The dial tone rang once.
Twice.
And then—
“Clara?”
My breath caught in my throat.
His voice was the same. Deep. Steady.
And familiar.
For the first time in four years, I heard my brother’s voice again.
I swallowed hard, gripping the phone like it was the only thing keeping me together.
“Hi,” I said in a whispered voice.
There was silence on the other end.
A heavy pause before I heard him exhale slowly.
“Where are you?”
Not ‘how are you?’ Not ‘why are you calling?’
Just that.
Just where.
Like he already knew.
Like he had been waiting.
- Writer
