Chapter 218 - Every Thump Between the Raindrops

*Thump Thump*

*Thump Thump*

*Thump Thump*

Her eyes slowly opened and she saw the darkness that colored her empty room.

She hadn't been seeing much colors lately. It was as if she went color blind — or was it that she just refused to see the charm of this so-called beautiful world that she once thought it was.

But she knew so well that the world was so bleak. That people could be so selfish. So dark and cruel. So unforgiving. Just like her.

She turned her head to the side and saw the clock. It was 3:14 a.m, September 29. 

*Tick Tock*

*Tick Tock*

*Tick Tock*

It had been twenty-nine days since she left Damien. Twenty-nine days without him. Twenty-nine days all alone.

She was alone in this large, empty space. A space she could never call home. It was more like a sleeping quarter. It was as big as half a basketball court — an open-concept just how she liked it. There was one bedroom but she had never slept in it since she started living there weeks ago. She felt suffocated being in a closed space, so she slept in the living room area.

Actually, there wasn't much stuff in her place. Once you get inside, the thing that you would definitely notice is 'space'. She had lots of it. On the right side were an empty kitchen and an empty bedroom while a huge living room space was on the left with nothing but one sofa where she sleeps and a coffee table in front of it. Oh, and a punching bag at the corner — something that she used almost everyday.

A huge space that could fit a family… but she was all alone.

*Pit Pat*

*Pit Pat*

Great. And now it's raining.

Katherine let out a long sigh. Her gaze landed on the floor to ceiling window that covered half of her place. She had tall curtains that covered most of the window but she had left a small crack open so she could look at the moon up in the dark sky when she felt like it.

Rain fell so slowly, hitting her windows and droplets ran down the outside of her glass. The pitter-patter of the rain was not in sync with her heartbeat and she wished it wasn't the case because now she could feel every thump between the raindrops.

Was the sky crying for her too?

Because if it was, could she ask for more tears?

Katherine curled up in a ball under her blanket, alone with her thoughts that made her want to cry. Too bad she had already used up all her tears because recently, despite the random reminders of her heartache on totally inconvenient times of the day, her eyes no longer watered. 

She was so exhausted. So tired of it all that she wished everything would just end. Most of the time, she had spent wasted away. 

At first, she started drinking, but she couldn't handle the hangovers the next morning. It only made her feel numb for a good number of hours until everything comes crashing down on her once again. 

It hadn't been easy for her. Katherine basically went through a whole heap of denial, grievance, and regret for the past weeks as she tried her hardest to wrap her head around the surge of memories that forced themselves to her baffled mind.

How could she have forgotten her parents? Her childhood. How everything changed in her life because of that one tragic night from sixteen years ago.

How she could love the one person she wasn't supposed to love?

She was so ashamed of herself. Her parents must feel so betrayed that she loved the enemy. She couldn't shake off the pang of treachery that she had marked herself with.

A few times in the past weeks, she had tried to visit her parents' graves but she couldn't make herself go near them. She would stand very far from where they were buried and spend a few hours just staring at their gravestones. She was filled with so much guilt and she could never forgive herself for what she did.

She deserved to be alone. She deserved to suffer. That's what she had been telling herself and she had believed it right through her bones. 

She almost wanted to laugh, what with how ironic her life was at the moment.

A few days after meeting Grandpa Theo, Katherine wanted to be away and not tell a single soul where she was. But after considering, she decided to inform her grandfather that she was only going to be away for a while, thinking that he might suddenly send a search party for her.

She had to be away in order to think things through and she couldn't do that if she was constantly trying to avoid the people who were looking for her. She already had a lot on her plate, knowing that Damien had sent people to look for her too.

But it had gone quiet lately — like the search had stopped. Had he stopped looking for her? She didn't exactly know whether she should be happy or hurt.

Pushing herself off the sofa, Katherine swung her legs to the side and got up. She had been trying to sleep since ten in the evening and was still awake five hours later.

She walked towards the window and placed her hand on the cool glass. She blew a long breath against it and it turned cloudy. Subconsciously, she lifted a finger up and started swirling on it, drawing something without much thought. Her hand stiffened when she realized that she had just written the letter 'D'.

Katherine's heart throbbed and her first reaction was to brush a hand over it, erasing what she just drew. 

'That's enough, Katherine. This is pathetic,' she told herself as she turned around and walked towards the kitchen.

She knew there was nothing in her refrigerator but she opened it anyway as if she was half-expecting magic would happen and she would see a fridge stocked with food. 

But just like her life at the moment, her fridge was sad and lonely. There was nothing but a bottle of water and a piece of potato that she didn't even remember buying.

She had to do some grocery shopping tomorrow—a few hours later as soon as the supermarket opens.

After a quick sigh, she pulled the water bottle from the fridge and brought it with her to the sofa, drinking as she sat down on her makeshift bed. Knowing that she couldn't possibly go to sleep anymore, she opened her laptop on the coffee table and started typing. 

Her mind drifted to what she did sometime last week. She had covertly checked Shadow's base — the one she bombed. Five years had really been such a long time because the previous empty field was now a commercial building.

She didn't know where to start but at least she was a hundred percent sure that Chris was alive. She had met him a few times before her memories returned. As for the rest of Shadow, she had no idea.

As soon as she came to her senses on the night of August 31st, it was as though she instantly transformed into how she was before she lost her memories. She had first stayed in a motel downtown and tricked the person who was watching her — probably one of Chris's people. She had moved a couple of times to distract her unwanted followers before finally settling in her current lair.

Katherine's fingers danced across the keyboard, her focus fixed on the white screen with letters and pictures filling the website that she was browsing on. 

Just a few minutes later, a notification popped up on the lower right corner of her screen. A response to her inquiry from yesterday. A small smile formed on her face as she typed in a short response:

[Copy that. Tomorrow 9 am. Sun Avenue.]

She didn't get any sleep, but at least she got a job. 

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