PARADISE | Caught In The Fire

Chapter Three : I Could've Loved You Better

Unconditional Love.. 

We started learning of it from a very early age, and some of us wasted their teenager years dreaming of it with the wrong person. To love with no return, to give without taking, and to be only satisfied with the sight of your lover. We've later on came to the conclusion that one can not keep on living like this, to give is to take, and to love, is to to be loved back. But even though we have completely comprehended the idea that no love will ever survive with such base, some of us just couldn't let it go of the idea of that one person. No matter how much they fought their feelings, battled with their mind, and even left all of what they know and vanished just so they could move on, they just fail and always come back. 

but what if there was no one to come back to ... and you are left alone all by yourself 

Paradise was laying on her bedroom's floor as the sun was still rising thinking of the life she could've had if Lily never left them. She was imagining the man her father could have been, but she also wondered if he was ever a happy man. Paradise's spent her calm days wondering of the life she didn't know of. 

How did Caiden met Lily, when did he feel that she was the one. Did Isabelle like her, was Lily Funny, was Lily a good mother till she wasn't? Why did she leave, did she ever love Caiden, did Caiden ever love her? 

But it was forbidden for such questions to leave Paradise's mind and run out of her mouth. Not after that one time when she was fourteen, begging Isabelle to let her know where her mother was. she told her that she couldn't take it anymore, that he heart hurts just thinking about her. Everyone around her was frozen in their place afraid of what Isabelle might do since Paradise just broke a rule, and when she asked everyone to leave the room, Katherine's heart dropped, and Aiden for the first time spoke against his own grandmother letting her know that if ever thought of hurting Paradise, he would do the same to everyone else. 

The door closed, and Isabelle took off her heels and sat next to Paradise on the floor. 

"I know how you feel" Isabelle said  When I was 15, my mother threw a big birthday party, she invited everyone, people that we knew, and people that I didn't know. She brought my favorite band, and the most beautiful birthday cake. She got me 15 present for every year I have lived. I went to the bed that night swamping in happiness, I felt the bed rocking, and the sky moving, and in my heart I was sure that no matter what happens, nothing could ever make me sad again. I couldn't sleep for hours that day, but Mother told me that since it was my birthday she will allow me to get as much sleep as I want,  And my mother was a very strict woman. I woke up really late that day, it was 7: 45 in the evening.  The house was oddly silent, and the party mess was still there, no one cleaned anything. I called for my mum but she wasn't replying, and I became worried because the house was never that calm before. And when I ran outside, my dad was setting on the porch of the house, it has been raining, my dad was sitting with his heads buried between his knees, his elbows covering his face, and he was shaking from the cold. I was 
He didn't look at me, but he lift his face and whipped his tears " Dad where is mum, what is going on? "

He sniffed " She is gone Isabelle. Your mum left, she took all of her clothes, and left. I don't think she will ever come back" Just like that Paradise. He said it and then left me myself on that porch. crying and calling my mum out. I didn't even have a driver license, but I took my dad's car and I went for hours driving to places I have never seen before.

Then she placed her hands on Paradise's hands 

" We woke up one day and your mother was gone, we thought that she she took you as well, but you were tucked into your bed, in a deep sleep unaware that the woman who birthed you just left you, leaving you behind. we searched everywhere, we asked everyone, but no one saw her, she just vanished, leaving no traces behind her. Your father jumped into his car and roamed the city for months, every corner, every house, every store, but he found nothing. She left Paradise, she left us, she left Caiden, and she left you. And if she wanted to she would've came back, she would've called or reached out, if she wanted to see you she would have knocked those doors 23 years ago, but she didn't. So, don't break your father's heart again, his heart can't take it