Chapitre 11: The truth untold
SHAY
I could hear voices.
But I could hardly make out what they were saying.
My mind felt so hazy.
I opened my eyes to the bright fluorescent lights and a white room.
A face hovered above me. I blinked.
"You look exactly like her."
Marcus, the owner of the face, was Marcus, Marcus Zephanie.
Sweat. I woke up drenched in sweat.
I allowed myself a five-minute recovery from that dream before finally getting out of bed. My phone singing out the alarm was beginning to irritate me.
I must have overslept a little, seeing that Stella's bed was already made, and the waft of freshly brewed coffee could be smelled from the kitchen.
Though I wasn't a coffee person, I liked the smell of it. It was quite soothing.
Searching the entire bed for my still annoyingly ringing alarm, I felt weird that I didn't seem hungry.
It was probably because Detective Oliver ordered a lavish menu last night. With me being a no-to-wasting-food kind of gal, I ended up eating too much.
Finally, fishing out the phone under my pillow, I moved on, stumbling on my way out, heading for the kitchen.
I found Stella mid-bite of a toast, already sitting with her cup of coffee. She beamed upon seeing me, offering the piece of toast she was biting into.
I gladly took her offer, sinking my teeth on the crunchy treat.
"Someone had a 'rough' night." I didn't like her emphasis on the word 'rough.'
Still half-asleep, I slumped on the only other chair around our kitchen table.
"I won't disagree. However, our definitions of 'rough' are entirely different".
"I'm listening." I dropped my head on the table.
"I'm getting married." Stella's hands practically pulled my head back up, forcing me to face her while holding onto my precious body part.
"You don't say." She looked so animated, followed by her squeals.
If only she knew the deal behind it, I don't think she would be as thrilled as she was now.
On the contrary, I could imagine her cursing the detective, wanting him to be lost from my life forever.
"I can't believe he would move so fast." I can't believe it either.
I removed Stella's hands holding my face and sighed.
"The sexy detective proposed to you last night. I'd be over the moon if I were you".
I would be too if only it wasn't a sham. Also, I helped myself not to cringe upon hearing her call him sexy.
Images of what went down in the elevator on our way to La Boutique invaded my thoughts. My heart and pulse began reacting to the memory.
"Informally, yes, and could you please stop calling him the sexy detective."
Stella covered her mouth in an attempted effort to feign her surprise.
"Oh my, something did happen. Come on, Shay, I demand a very detailed version of what went down. I'm all ears".
"Nothing happened." I insisted, removing myself from Stella's suspicious and excited gaze.
"Shay, come on." I heard her whine, but I chose to ignore it, closing the bathroom door behind me.
Honestly, I did not intend to give in to Detective Oliver's plan. But after teasing him for a bit, I decided that it wouldn't hurt to help him out.
Whether or not I get something out of it, I think he deserves a little sympathy from me.
I could already picture out how this plan would fail.
Marcus, or at least this version of Marcus, the real Marcus Zephanie, is daunting.
There was no way that he would allow himself to get caught. He wasn't before, and he won't let it happen now.
No matter how determined Detective Oliver could get, both Marcus and X will always be beyond his reach.
--
RAFAEL
"To Detective Oliver." Ronald proclaimed, clinking his shot glass to mine.
We were at Lofty Haven, the famous and only bar in The Mesial, and on Ronald's insistence, we were supposed to be celebrating how I was able to convince Shay Zephanie to agree on a sham marriage to me.
Deep inside, though, I didn't feel celebratory at all.
Yesternight, right after Shay Zephanie had finally agreed to do the fake marriage, she also confessed how she has a standard on these kinds of things.
I could vividly remember the look on her face. It made me feel like a total jerk for not even considering how she would feel about this arrangement. So I ended up making a promise.
I promised her that when all of this was over, once we could indict Marcus and hopefully find X as well, I will set her free.
And while she was bound to me in marriage, I won't ever touch her.
There will be absolutely nothing between us. It will be a plain marriage on paper.
Given all of that, I don't understand why I feel so dejected.
Was it because she might be right on the ten percent probability of guessing this plan to work?
Or, maybe because I don't feel so confident about this plan anymore after hearing her say the several reasons she thought this was a bad idea?
Or was it simply because of her being involved in all of it?
"Say, if it were you who is in my position, on a scale of 1 to 5, given that 5 is the highest probability, how would you rate the chance of falling in love with Shay Zephanie?"
Ronald scrunched his face in confusion. I couldn't remember where that came from. Maybe it was just me drunk talking.
"Me? Are you talking about you or me?"
"Both?" I said, wanting to hear his opinion.
"Shay Zephanie is not my type, so if it were me, I'd give it a 2, for her being pretty. But if I were you, I think it would be a perfect 5. You already seem smitten by her, and after marriage, you two would be a lot cozier. It will only be a matter of time before you both fall madly, deeply in love with each other".
I grabbed the full bottle of whiskey situated between the half-empty ones, raising it above my head for a toast of my own.
"To my immunity against Shay Zephanie's charm, may the odds be ever in my favor". I chugged the entire bottle, finishing it in several gulps, hoping to drown the inevitability of what Ronald had said.
One thing was certainly clear to me: I had started to like Shay Zephanie. And I'm afraid it would only grow deeper just as my friend predicted.
There was no escaping that part of my reality.
Cadeaux
-- Cadeau
reçu État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone