Stain

CHAPTER 4

LUNA

Casper did not really come back home last night. I waited, and I fell asleep on the couch, but there was no sign of him, even in the morning. I texted him, saying that I had cooked him his favorite food for breakfast, but up until now, he has not seen it. This was not the first time that he has done this, but I always got afraid.

Casper will not come back anymore.

Casper is going to leave you.

Stop waiting. Stop hoping.

These were only a few of the things that my brain was telling me. Casper was not the best boyfriend, I admit that, but I would not deny how good he was to me before all of this. If he was like that to me once, it would not be impossible for him to turn back into the man I fell in love with five years ago. The thought of my boyfriend not returning into my arms scares me. I would accept and forgive his mistakes; I would turn a blind eye and pretend to not know anything; I would wait for him in our home with open arms… Just come home to me, Casper.

“Excuse me,” a voice snapped me back to reality. I lifted my head and realized that there was a customer standing in front of the cash register. I swallowed the knot in my throat and shook my head.

“Good morning, sir,” I greeted and looked at him. My eyes grew wide, lips parted slightly as my brain tried to recall where I have met the man who was before me. I noticed the three moles that formed a little triangle on the corner of his right eye.

The moles…

“Brandon?” I asked. He smiled.

“I was afraid that you’d already forgotten about me,” he chuckled. The huskiness in his voice filled my ears, and it sounded so soothing. He was wearing a plain white button-up polo with long sleeves, a black jacket draped over his arm, and his hair was disheveled on top of his head. “I just got out of work,” he suddenly spoke and I turned away. He sensed that I was staring at him. That was so embarrassing.

“What’s your order, sir?” I asked, my tone was all business. A large cup of hot Americano was all he told me he wanted to get. I wrote his name on the cup and turned away from the cash register to work on his coffee. But I froze when my eyes caught something outside the window of the café—it was Casper, walking hand-in-hand with another woman.

Was that the woman whom he met up with last night? With whom he had dinner? Whom he chose over me?

“Luna!” I jumped when my co-worker yelled out my name. “Focus!”

I could do anything, but that. It was hard to concentrate on my job when I just saw my boyfriend holding hands with another woman. I am his girlfriend! My fingers should be the ones intertwined with his! I should be the one in his arms!

“Hot Americano for Brandon!” I screamed once I was done with his order. My head turned to the side again, hoping to catch another glimpse of him and the woman he was with. I wanted to be sure. My eyes could only be playing with me. My brain could only be tricking me, seeing how anxious I have been since last night that Casper left our apartment. I could only be hallucinating.

“Uh, miss, I didn’t order this…” I looked back at Brandon. He was pointing to the plate of brownie in his tray. One corner of his lip curled up to form a smirk on his face. I gasped, taking it away immediately and placing it on the counter top behind me.

“I’m sorry, sir. I was… I was…”

I saw them again. In my periphery. The woman he was with has dark hair, her eyes were the same color as his own, and she has the perfect hour glass body. A knot formed in my throat and I swallowed it down. Tears welled up in my eyes and I blinked. My hands started to tremble and the beating of my heart increased in speed.

It was not a trick. It was not a hallucination.

“Luna?” Brandon snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Are you okay?” He followed the direction of my gaze, but Casper and the woman were already gone. I was glad they were, because I did not want anyone else to know that I am being cheated on by my boyfriend. The women Casper has been taking to our home were more than enough for people to laugh and look down on me.

I nodded my head to answer his question and took his card, scanned it and thanked him for dining into our café for today. I could not look at him and smile. It would have seemed forced and fake, anyway, and so I did not dare.

The rest of the day was even harder than it was in the morning. I tried reaching Casper’s cell over my lunch break, but my calls did not go through. I sent him texts, but he did not reply even once. I would bet that he has not seen any one of them. I could not count how many times my co-workers have asked me if I was all right. My focus was somewhere else, but there was no way that I could ever tell them that it was because I saw my boyfriend of five years holding hands with another woman outside my workplace.

I have seen worse—Casper kissing with someone else, sharing a bed with someone else, on top of someone else—but every time feels like it was the first time. Every time, my heart would shatter. Every time, my whole world would crumble into pieces. Every time, my tears would fall down my face like pouring rain.

What did I ever do to him? Where did I go wrong? When did things go wrong?

I received a text message from him, telling me that he would not be coming home tonight as well. It was almost nine in the evening when I read it, after I took out the trash and clocked out of work. A sigh escaped my lips, my back leaned against the wall and my fingers combed through my hair. “I’m tired of this…”

“Tired of what?” A voice spoke from beside me and I jumped. It was Brandon. Behind him was a white car, the black jacket which was draped over his arm earlier this morning was now around his shoulders, and it seemed that he fixed his hair as well. His outfit was simple; he has dark circles underneath his eyes; and the first two buttons of his white polo shirt were open yet he still looked princely. I would not believe any woman who had seen him, whom he had walked past, say that they did not fall for his handsome face nor did they not turn their heads back to look at him the second time.

“Good evening, Brownie.”

My hands dropped to my sides. “Brownie?” My head tilted slightly as I tried to figure out why he was calling me that; a light blush painted my cheeks when I remembered my mistake this morning. “I’m really sorry about that. That wasn’t so professional of me. There was something on my mind when it happened…”

I heard a soft chuckle from the man before me. The keys on the palm of his hand jingle as he puts them in his pocket. Brandon looked down at me with a smile. “I know. I realized that. I was looking at you.”

Come again? What was that?