章 21: AN UNPLEASANT ENCOUNTER

Looking dazed, Amaranta left the doctor's office. In the distance, he could see her grandmother sitting alone on the bench, waiting for her to return. Tears ran down Amaranta's beautiful face. He couldn't give up on his grandmother. She was determined to try to save her grandmother from the illness that afflicted her. Definitely, she would raise enough money for her grandmother to be treated, with the best medicine, with the best doctors.

Amaranta sat next to her grandmother, her grandmother sighed. «There are so many people in Capital City. So many in the hospital and on the buses. There are people everywhere!

"Grandma, do you miss the town?" Amaranta rested her head on her grandmother's shoulders, fully aware that her grandmother was homesick. The grandmother had spent so many years in the village. And now, having to come to an unknown place, she surely felt uncomfortable.

"No. "This is my first trip to the capital city," replied the grandmother.

Laughing softly, Amaranta said, "Grandma, it's too early to say for sure, but he may not have passed the preliminary interview. If I don't pass the first round, we will have to return home in the afternoon the day after tomorrow.

«That won't happen. My dear Amaranta, you are so capable. How could you not get into the Film Academy!?", the girls were immersed in their own thoughts, when someone called their grandmother.

"Mrs. Maria?"

A familiar voice rang in her ears, and Amaranta felt her head begin to pound hard, as if a bomb had exploded in her head.

Confused, Grandma Mary raised her head and looked at the person in front of them. «Is that you, Mr. Santamarina? Javier Santamarina?

«Mrs. María, please, wait, can we talk?» To Javier Santamarina's question, the grandmother responded: «You and me, we have nothing to talk about!»

Javier Santamarina then turned to Amaranta Cid and asked her: "Amaranta, do you remember me?" "We met when you were little!"

Amaranta preferred to shake her head. She didn't want to remember meeting Javier Santamarina, perhaps they had met when she was very young. However, at that age, she would have been too young to remember meeting him.

"Amaranta, let's go!"

Dragging Amaranta, the grandmother left the hospital.

However, Javier Santamarina was not going to miss this chance meeting with Amaranta Cid and her grandmother. Immediately, he stood in front of Grandma Mary and stopped her in her tracks. — "Mrs. Mary, you are already old. Can't you have a peaceful conversation with me? I have no bad intentions!"

Amaranta looked fiercely at Javier Santamarina.

«My grandmother doesn't want to talk to you. Please don't get in our way."

Javier laughed softly, and a look of nostalgia appeared on his face. —"You look exactly like Monica when you're upset."

"Despicable and shameless!" Amaranta cursed him silently.

«Do you know my mother? If so, do you also know my father? Amaranta asked innocently. Even knowing the answer to this question.

Looking at the adorable Amaranta, Javier Santamarina extended his hand, wanting to touch her head. "I am you…"

«Amaranta, go buy me a bottle of water. Do you want? »— His grandmother quickly intervened, preventing Javier Santamarina from saying anything else. Amaranta clearly understood his grandmother's intentions. The grandmother wanted to prevent Javier from speaking, but she couldn't think of any other way to do it than by making up the excuse that she was thirsty. Amaranta could only obey her grandmother and go buy her a bottle of water.

«Mr. Santamarina, more than a decade ago, I told you that Mónica is my daughter and that Amaranta is my granddaughter. For the rest of my life, as long as I am breathing, I will never give you Amaranta, because my daughter never told me that you were Amaranta's father. Thank you for continuing to send me and my granddaughter money all these years. However, I have returned the money to you intact… I simply don't want to have anything to do with you at all!

Javier Santamarina knew that his grandmother had a strong and unbreakable temperament. Pulling the grandmother to sit on the bench, he began to speak with all sincerity.— «Mrs. Cid, I know you resent me and hate me, but Amaranta has already grown up. Can't we put aside all our past grievances and calmly discuss Amaranta's future? She's going to turn eighteen this year, and she's about to take the college entrance exams, right? I heard that Amaranta's grades have been consistently bad.

In that case, what university could she be accepted into? Let's assume that she is accepted into the Film Academy. Tell me, how will you pay for her education there? And what happens if Amaranta doesn't go to university? And now what? Would she have to work hard as a worker in any store? Or would she just get married? Mrs. Cid, I know that she is very hurt by what she told him.

It happened to Monica, so you want to keep Amaranta by your side…"—Grandma Mary interrupted him from his speech.

«Javier Santamarina, stop talking so much nonsense! I will never hand you over to Amaranta. When that incident with Monica blew up all those years ago, you came to see us. Now, I repeat what I told you then. As long as I live, I will never give you my beautiful Amaranta… The only way you can take it from me is over my dead body!"

Having made this brutal statement, the grandmother stood up to move away from her. But Javier Santamarina refused to give up, even with the hope of being able to achieve her reasoning. He tried to hold her back by pulling her arm.

Amaranta ran towards them and stood in front of her grandmother. Like a warrior, she blocked Javier Santamarina's outstretched hand.

«Sir you… What do you think you are doing?»

Javier withdrew his hand, looking embarrassed. He looked at Amaranta, with a face full of fatherly love. He told her: "Amaranta, I just want to talk to your grandmother."

Amaranta only gave her a look of contempt and helped her grandmother as they moved away from Javier Santamarina's line of sight. As she watched the grandmother and granddaughter couple walk away from her, all she could think about was the woman who had always been stuck in her memories and in her mind, Amaranta's mother, Mónica Cid…

Ana Santamarina, along with Óscar Roing, had seen Javier Santamarina from afar and called him: —"Father, who were you talking to before?"

«Someone I know. "Ana, is your ankle okay?"

Clinging to her father's arm, Ana acted shy and said sweetly, "Dad, I'm fine. It's just a minor sprain. Oscar was being too loud. He insisted that I get an x-ray. Even the doctor confirmed that it is nothing serious!

«Just listen to yourself. Óscar was simply worried about you, and he did it for your own good," commented Javier Santamarina.

Ana Santamarina pouted unhappily and said, "I know Oscar did it for my own good. But you know how much I hate hospitals!

«In the future, you should be more careful when going downstairs. Don't get injured again!

"Come on. "I'll take you to the hotel first!"

Óscar Roing supported Ana Santamarina as they walked to the car. Leaning against Oscar's shoulders, Ana said crudely and haughtily: "Oscar, I want to eat KFC!"

«No, you can't. "That's all junk food." Oscar bluntly rejected his request without a second thought.

Ana pretended to cry, whining childishly, "Oscar, you have such a cruel heart. "I'm sick… Why can't you just let me have my way?" Feeling his soft body against his chest, Oscar Roing's face instantly turned crimson red.

Unaware of the effect she had had on him, Ana asked, "Oscar, aren't you feeling well?" Your face is blushing…"

Ana, that silly girl. How could she be so naive!? He was, after all, a real man!, not an emotionless stone.

When Javier Santamarina arrived with his vehicle, he carefully helped Ana get in and put her seat belt on. When they got settled, Javier began to leave the hospital car park. He passed by the bus stop located in front of the hospital, Javier noticed that Amaranta and her grandmother were there, waiting for the bus.

"Mrs. Mary, Amaranta, where are you going?" He called. "Let me take them!"

"Oscar, look," Ana said. "She is the girl from yesterday…" he could be familiar with people like them, Ana's father.

Javier Santamarina had already unbuckled his seat belt and walked in front of Amaranta and Grandma Mary. —«Let's go. Let me take them wherever they are going." Without further ado, he told them.