Hot Pursuit

Chapter 27.5

[Kieran's POV]

TWO YEARS AGO...

Loving someone... has always been very complicated for me. Since the day I had entered the world of fame, it just became unbearable. The cost of having to face the public and conceal my real self was to endure the fact that I can't just fall in love freely.

In this life I was living in, everything was just Tear gas to me. Things would always pop right in, exploding into a mess, then it would turn into a thick smoke of disappointment until I suffocate. That was how it had always felt. It was all just polluted and too fatal that it always made me want to kill myself every time I had to face another problem. But still, I kept on with it. Because unfortunately, despite the strong suicidal tendencies, I was still selfish. I had wanted this.

An ambitious moron... Until she came back into my life again.

One night, at a concert, in a sea of drunken maniacs and foggy nicotine, I saw her. She was just suddenly there. Like a magnifier, my vision had suddenly zoomed in on her and I was indefinitely hit---hit by an eight-wheeler truck. It left me brutally scarred, injured, with a long metal pipe shot straight into my chest. Metaphorically, I could say, I was permanently damaged.

And that's how it happened---how the "tear gas" life I used to have was immediately replaced by the seductive poison I call "HER". Though it wasn't always that life-threatening. She had been the best thing that had happened to me even way before I had become Kieran Locke. But at times, whenever I had to figure out how to keep her forever with me, I still found myself fearing for what the future might hold for us. Choosing her made me more anxious about every little thing that it would sometimes break parts of my sanity. Nevertheless, I still chose to love her. Evenw hen I knew that this kind of love was only because I felt alone... And lonely.

Yet despite the tragedy, the hurt, the pain, the fear... If I was ever given a chance to re-do everything again, I would still want to love and be with her. Even if it's not the good kind of love. I just want to see her again... I just love her irrationally. Even when sometimes, love can never be just enough and it could still become a root of evil that would bring one to another world that might ruin his life into shambles.

Like what she did to me.

***********************

[MARION's POV]

SEVEN YEARS AGO...

The static sleazy display of the golden boy mocked me back with that charming smile of his. How annoying. I wanted to rip that nasty grin off of that silly poster and burn it into black ashes. But even if I do, he would still be a beautiful man. And I would only look like a lunatic diva displaying tantrums over a plastic poster in front of the cinema house. How pathetic can I really get? Even just a silly poster could easily trigger me off.

"It won't burn no matter how long you stare at it."

That was Ina, my closest friend, one of the fewest people who can really understand my personality. Few of the ones who knew my relationship with the handsome bastard on the poster. She could also read my mind so easily. And she's the only one who knew why I keep glaring at the actor smiling adoringly towards a dreamy young teen star in his arms.

"This can't be really selling that much, right?"

"I read the headlines this morning and it said they topped the charts already."

The headlines?

"Ha?! This movie?! Why would they even bother watching this? It's a stereotype romance," I said bitterly, gritting my teeth from the irritating feeling of it.

"Well, most people don't really mind the story now, Mari. As long as you see a famous name, people would always flock around it, enough for them to watch even if it's not worth it. Not everybody is as technical as you," Ina told me directly, stopping right beside me on the sidewalk as we both stared at the glassy poster. She paused as she gave an appreciative look at the picture as well and nodded with a sigh.

"I swear he just keeps getting hotter and hotter as we grow old. Don't you think? How did you even manage to get that?"

I snorted loudly as a response. I didn't want to admit it, but what can I really say? He was really so beautiful. Always has been. And such fact still did not have to be rubbed right onto my face for me to agree with. After all, I was painfully seduced by that beauty curse.

Such a pain... Really. But can I even blame him?

"Marion."

Upon the call of my name, I turned to Ina, still scowling. "What?"

"He doesn't know, does he? Are you still protecting him?"

That somehow came out of the blue and it caught me off guard. I went numb for a second after that, her question was too painful I didn't even have enough strength to mask the misery on my face. Every nerve in my body just froze and I felt a hard kick to my gut.

When I did not say anything, I figured Ina already knew the answer. And I just stood there, not moving in front of the poster. People had been passing us by on the sidewalk and I could even hear a group of young girls gushing over the movie the poster near me. And as the noise brought me back to the present, I consciously bit my lip to forget the disappointment that was now trying to swallow me down into a pit of regrets.

"Say, Marion. Does looking at his picture still make you go insane?"

My eyes flitted back to the cheesy poster. My mind suddenly revisited flashes from my past with the beautiful man on the picture. I didn't really want to go back to that again. But I just can't help it if my heart would always weaken at the sight of his face. Whenever I see him this close, even with just an image of his, it would always happen. My heart aching, my mind shutting off, and my emotions rising. And I would feel a c***k.

Crack. Just like what was happening to me now.

Ina, on the other hand, could only watch me as I stayed mute. Then I felt her hand grasping mine. My head involuntarily turned on its own to look at her, and she gave me a sad smile.

"Come on," she then invited me, "Why don't we go have some dinner at Russo's? You still need to keep yourself healthy. It's not good to skip a meal, you know."

I nodded. And it was not like I was going to stay there just staring at the poster forever. The food was a very good diversion too. So, without another word, I just squeezed Ina's hand back and made one last glance at the beautiful man from my past before we finally left.

Brown eyes, auburn hair... Two dimples on his right cheek. His face didn't really have too much to change over the years. And I knew that his heart was also still the same. We were now living in two different worlds. Despite the fact that our pasts were strongly intertwined with each other before we fell apart, he might never even recognize me now even if we come face to face today. 

And I don't really care if he wouldn't. Because we had already sworn to never go back to those days anymore. We just have to keep moving forward from now on...

Never looking back to that time ever again. Even if that might change in the future, all I knew was that at this moment, I never want to look back at him again.