Married Off To The Impoverished Son

Chapter 2 Tragic Saviour

Ava’s POV

The start of high school usually marked a new era for teenagers. It was a place where great change occurred. A hectic change.

“I love your eyes,” Cloris said as she stared at me with thick-rimmed glasses.

I blinked. Then I glanced around the classroom, looked back at Cloris, and blinked again. I was confused. ‘Is she talking to me?’ I wondered but I didn’t dare to say it out loud. What if I was wrong? The embarrassment would kill me.

This was my first day at school and it seemed that everyone already knew everybody. In the fairly large classroom, everyone had someone to talk with, except for me. I had been told repeatedly by Mia that I was a gloomy person, so it made sense that no one would want to talk to me.

I sat in the corner of the classroom with my head submerged in my book. I just hoped that the day would go fast and I would be able to go home on time. But then again, I didn’t have a safe space at home either. But the solitude of my room was far better than the bustle of the classroom.

“Hey! I’m talking to you. Pretty lady!” Cloris smiled brightly as she took the vacant seat beside me.

I blinked again in confusion. I gave Cloris a look. Cloris’s smile didn’t diminish.

“You’re not much of a talker are you?” Cloris asked. She leaned back in her seat in a strange manner. Her glasses tilted slightly with her movement.

I had a light blush on my face at this point. It had been such a long time since someone tried to talk to me. In middle school, Mia had spread horrible rumors about me so no one at school dared to associate with me.

“…sorry.” I managed to let out.

“Aww, even your voice is pretty. If that makes any sense. Anyway, I love your blue eyes, they’re pretty. I’m Cloris. You are?” Cloris leaned in closer to me.

I stared at her for a moment. Cloris’s smile was contagious. In no time, the corner of my lips had tilted up.

“Ava.”

And this was the start of our friendship. Cloris was an outgoing person, yet for some reason, she didn’t have many friends. I was her closest. Cloris was an orphan from a nearby orphanage.

She managed to rent a small apartment near school and she worked at a popular restaurant in the city. She was a resilient young woman. Cloris’s apartment became my safe space. I loved it there. It was a nice environment for me to be in. I would spend weekends at Cloris’s home. Cloris was an early riser. Her biological clock was on the point.

I was happy. But the others around me weren’t. Mia and Evelyn especially. Mia often spent her time bullying me. Now that I was unavailable, Mia was agitated.

Darkness loomed in the sky as Cloris and I walked to her place. We walked down a dimly lit road.

“So you like him?” I asked as I held Cloris’s arm. Cloris had her usual smiling face on, but this time, there was a hint of shyness mixed in her expression. Cloris seemed to have a crush on a certain someone at school. Apparently, the feeling might be mutual.

“Well…I don’t hate him..” Cloris giggled as she said this. I smiled at her. I felt happy for Cloris. She deserved to be happy.

As we walked back to the apartment, there was a comfortable silence in the air.

Suddenly, the air took a dark shift.

“What..?” Cloris asked in shock when a big burly man suddenly stopped their way.

I felt my heart drop at the sight of his sinister look. Cloris immediately sensed the problem. She shoved me behind her and said: “Hey! What do you want?!”

I wasn’t exactly sure what happened afterward. It felt like some strange dream. One moment, I was behind Cloris, and the next, I was pinned down below a heaving man with his arousal pressed against my belly.

We had taken a quiet but desolate route. No one would hear our screams. Cloris was on the floor a few feet away, struggling to catch her breath. The man had beaten her up to get to me. He was quiet, yet ruthless.

I felt like my world was going to crash when he started to rip my clothes apart. I was too weak for this. Before anything could happen to me, she fainted. And when I finally regained consciousness, I was wrapped up in a towel and there were police officers in front of me, trying to ask me questions. I ignored their voices and searched for Cloris.

The sight of Cloris that day left me traumatized.

Cloris had been raped by that man. She had tried to protect me but got burnt instead. A passerby saw the scene from afar and called the police. The assaulter was long gone before they came.

It was a horrible experience for both of us, especially Cloris.

After that day, things took a turn. Cloris was depressed and wouldn’t leave her home. I was guilt-ridden and spent most of my free time being there for Cloris.

One day, I went to Cloris’s place and found that her mood had improved.

“David and I got together…we had sex.” Cloris simply said with a strange smile. I wasn’t sure how it had happened, but I felt relieved. Cloris would heal.

Life took another unexpected turn.

David died.

I could vaguely remember Cloris calling me with a muffled tone and breaking the news to me. Apparently, Cloris had recognized her assaulter during an outing and David, enraged, went after him. They engaged in a brawl, and soon, a glass shard was shoved into David’s chest. He died instantly.

Cloris would never recover from that. She blamed herself. Although the man was caught, her lover had died.

Reality bent to no one. Cloris was pregnant with David’s child. She resolutely decided to keep it. It was the last thing David left for her.

Cloris had to drop out of school. It was their senior year.

I was always with her. I helped her through everything. I was always there, so I definitely noticed that Cloris was different. The events had truly broken her.

Cloris always smiled, but it never reached her eye. When she finally gave birth, she seemed ten years older.

I was always with her, despite her father’s complaints.

Cloris was depressed. The aura around her had completely changed and it would possibly never return. I had a sense of foreboding until it finally happened.

Two months after Cloris birthed Euclid, I went to her home, only to find the door wide open.

Euclid was bawling, yet the room was strangely silent.

I shivered as I ran in.

I found Cloris on the floor beside Euclid’s crib with a note in her hand.

‘I can’t do it anymore. Please save Euclid.’ It simply said.

I was livid. I frantically gathered Cloris into my arms.

“Cloris? Cloris?!” A choked sob escaped my lips.

Cloris’s body was ice cold in my arms and the room temperature seemed to drop further.

I seemed to go deaf at that moment.

All I could hear was the fast beating of my own heart, the loud silence from Cloris, and the loud cries of Euclid—who had lost his mother.

Cloris was my tragic saviour.