Chapter 400 – Beginning with a Daring Encounter

“Probably. But my boyfriend and friends were discreetly looking out for me, ready to capture any evidence of her next attack. Once the evidence was submitted to the school authorities, she was expelled. Her parents pleaded with mine to not press charges because of her father’s political ambition,” she finished.

“Wow!” Lucas exclaimed as he stood, unable to believe that he had been in love with a lunatic and had almost married her. He almost laughed at himself when he remembered how he could have sworn that Rachel could never hurt a fly.

“I’m sorry…”

“Why? Because you just told me that I was engaged to a sociopath?”

“Yes. Because I have a feeling that hearing this would only end up making you feel more upset than happy. I wish I had nice things to say about her,” Miley said, and Lucas waved her off.

“It’s fine. I should leave now,” Lucas said as he picked up both his phone and Rachel’s phone. He needed to figure out just how she had been monitoring him and find out to what extent.

Miley gave him a nod, not seeing any reason to stop him from leaving anymore. Once Lucas got to the door, he stopped and looked back at her, “You didn’t tell me who was on the phone with you earlier,” Lucas reminded her.

“Her name is Amy. She’s your twin sister’s secretary. We grew up together.”

“You grew up together but she’s not your sister?” Lucas asked as he tried to remember the face of Celsie’s secretary. He couldn’t really remember her face, but he remembered that she had sounded smart.

“You could call her that, but we are not blood-related. She’s our housekeeper’s daughter,” Miley explained.

“I see. Thanks for helping me last night,” Lucas said with a bow before walking out.

He had enough issues to deal with already and the last thing he wanted was to get dragged into this whatever it was.

She was terminally ill and nothing good could come out of being friends with someone he knew would probably die soon.

He definitely didn’t want to become friends with anyone remotely connected to Rachel either. They had bad history already and he didn’t want any part in that.

Inside Celsie’s office, she stared at her phone for a moment as she tried to make up her mind whether or not she should speak with her mother.

Every attempt to focus on work was futile because her thoughts kept drifting to her mother, and she knew that her mother wouldn’t be completely okay until things were resolved between them.

Although she still wasn’t over what her mother had said, what Desmond had said made sense to her. Her mother was only human and she was still trying to figure out parenting. If Sonia had been the one who threw a word like that at her in the middle of an argument, she would have been upset, but she would have forgiven Sonia. Her mother deserved that much.

It was time she related with her family as she related with everyone else. Maybe if she expressed her genuine emotions with them for once, then they would all stop tiptoeing around each other and be more expressive.

Even though she didn’t want to compare her family to Benne’s family since she knew that each family operated on different dynamics, and had their problems tailored to their dynamics, she loved Benne’s family and how they understood each other. She wasn’t sure her parents understood her, and she also was beginning to learn that maybe she didn’t understand her parents either. She wanted her family to do better, and to achieve that she needed to let go of her resentments.

Without wasting another second thinking about it, she dialed her mom’s line.

Janet, who was still pacing around the house thinking about where Lucas could have gone, received the call the moment she saw Celsie’s name displayed on the phone.

“Celsie,” her voice came out as a hoarse whisper, and she cleared it.

“What is wrong? Are you okay? Did something happen?” Celsie asked in concern when she heard the distress in her mother’s voice.

“I thought your father told you that Lucas is missing?” Janet asked, surprised that Celsie was asking her such a question when she knew about the situation of things.

“Lucas hasn’t called you yet? I spoke with him earlier, and he said he was going to give you both a call after our call. I thought he did so already, else I would have called….”

“He called you? Did he tell you where he is? His line is going through now?” Janet asked as Andrew who had just returned from walking down the block to see if he would learn anything new, rushed to stand beside her when he heard her question. Janet placed the phone on speaker so that he could hear Celsie.

“Yes, he returned my call. He said he wants to be alone for the time being, and he doesn’t want to come home now because everything at home reminds him of her,” Celsie explained.

“Do you think he is okay? Did he sound fine?” Andrew asked as he took the phone from Janet.

“You don’t expect him to be okay, mom. He isn’t okay. He had a headache, so he must have gotten drunk last night, but at least he had the sense not to take his car. He assured me that he wasn’t going to do anything stupid, so you don’t have to worry,” Celsie said, and they both relaxed.

“Still, it would help if we knew where he was staying. At least that way, I can be very sure that he is fine,” Janet said with a sigh.

“Don’t worry, at least now that Celsie has heard from him, we can relax until we hear from him directly. And we can also try to reach him again after talking to Celsie,” Andrew said, patting her back.

“What about you? How are you?” Janet asked when she remembered that she was yet to ask.

“I’m holding up,” Celsie said and then cleared her throat, “But I would like us to address what you said last night,” she added.

“Baby, I’m very sorry…”

“I’m not talking about an apology,” Celsie interrupted. “I just want to know why you said that. I don’t think that was something that you blurted out carelessly,” Celsie said, and Janet glanced at her husband helplessly.

“Celsie…”

“Stay out of this, dad! It has nothing to do with you… At least not yet. It’s either you both want me to talk about this and get it out of my mind, or you’d rather we all ignore the elephant in the room,” Celsie said testily.

“Fine. I’m sorry. You can go on,” Andrew said apologetically.

“I didn’t mean what I said. I don’t even know where it came from,” Janet said apologetically.

“I’m sorry, mom, but I don’t believe you. I really wish I could believe you and take your word for it, but I can’t. The choice of words you used didn’t sound like a mistake. But that’s okay,” Celsie paused to take a deep breath while her parents stared at each other, wondering what was going through her mind.

“I wish I could take it back. I wish there were a way you could see into my heart and see that I really didn’t mean it,” Janet said weakly. She was exhausted both physically and emotionally, and she didn’t know what else to say to convince Celsie that she really didn’t mean it, so she let her husband lead her to the couch where they both sat while he held on to the phone.

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