Before and After You

Chapter 10: Guess How Much I Love You

This chapter may contain scenes that may not be suitable for consumption of very young audiences. Reader discretion is advised. 

When their parents passed away, Samara decided to be Samantha's go-to person regardless of how old she may be. Since then, Mara has always been the Ate who would give the necessary push, but also the Ate who would lend a helping hand if necessary. The last two years, she had been the Ate who offered a shoulder to lean on and an ear that would listen.

But while she is an Ate, she is also a lawyer and a pretty damn good one. There are two things she hates the most: people who hurt her family, and loose ends. Eric had easily become both and Mara has been angry at him.

When the two separated, Mara insisted on a legal boundary to demarcate the separation. Sam refused, and not for the lack of convincing from her part. She broaches the subject every opportunity she gets but each time, Sam shots down the prospect. Her little sister is too stubborn for her own good, and while that has done wonders in the past, Mara cannot see any silver lining in her insistence to stay in a marriage that has no direction whatsoever. She cannot see what her sister can. Perhaps that's the difference between Mara and Sam— the former is a realist, sometimes too much of that, while the latter is an optimist. Sam has always been the dreamer between the two of them. While Mara is all for the dreaming though she cannot see that for herself, she fears that she has to snap Sam out of it if only to break the fall before her sister slams against the ground head first.

It turns out that her worries are all well founded as her sister slams head first to the ground anyway... or to the arms of the man who hurt her and Mara has neither temperance nor will to tolerate this shit.

"SAMANTHA?!" Mara bellows as she catches her sister making out with her husband, the word leaves a bitter taste on her tongue. "What the hell?!"

Sam scrambles off the counter and pushes Eric away, attempting to make herself as presentable as possible as she makes her way to her sister although that does her no good since she still looked like a child caught with a hand deep in the cookie jar.

"Ate," Sam starts, the wheels in her head turning to come up with an explanation that would both pacify her sister's flaring anger and explain their situation.

"Stop right there!" Mara warns her before she could say anything. "I don't want you to come up with bullshit explanations to explain him," she points at Eric who at least had the sense to look uncomfortably mortified.

"Mara–" he tries to say something but Mara cuts him off.

"I'm not here to talk to you, Castillo. I'm here to talk to my sister to understand bakit ang talino naman sana niya pero what the hell is happening here? I do not understand." She turns her glare at Samantha but she doesn't look unfazed.

There are momentous turning points in one's life where they have to stand their ground firmly. This is one of those. "Ate, calm down so we can talk."

Mara scoffs and shakes her head in disbelief. "You don't get to say that, Sam. And he," she points angrily at Eric, "doesn't get to waltz in and out whenever he wants to. You are his wife and not his plaything that he gets to drop when things get hard. You are not his emotional punching bag either."

"OH MY GOD, Ate! Stop it!" Sam cries. "That's not what happened!"

Mara runs her fingers through her hair angrily. "Then what?! Tell me, Sam. Tell me exactly what happened. Give me a walkthrough kasi ang hirap na saluhin ka without understanding what's going on kasi you refuse to tell me anything! You can't be bothered to explain why all of a sudden your husband is out of your house a few months after your kids got into an accident but that's fine kasi I promised you I will always be there for you pero Samantha naman. Sinaktan ka na ng tao tapos ganito malalaman ko na you two are playing house, pretending as if nothing happened?! Gumising ka, hindi ka tanga!"