||Say yes...please?|| {Unedited}

Chapter Eighteen

"Holding on and Letting go."

"Because love is not always about holding on,sometimes its about letting go."

★♥★

With tears stinging at the back of her eyes, Iris stormed out of the hotel, afraid of those treacherous tears to pour out. She didn't want to break down now, not here, not in front of people she didn't even know. Those tears were an asserting proof of her hurt but the most obvious question at the moment was the magnitude of her hurt.

'Why does it hurt so much?' She questioned herself.

'Why does it hurt so much to see those pain inflicted eyes, to see that hope being shattered in front of my eyes, to see those deep blue eyes turning into a translucent blue. I love Shane. I love him. Yes, I do. Then why does it have to hurt so much? Why, God why?!'

It was as if someone had taken her heart out of her being. As if all the air was sucked out from her lungs, it was very much alike the pain of losing someone, the pain she was so acquainted with.

She recalled the moment when she felt him gone. The feeling of something missing from her. How alone did she feel when Shane left her, leaving her alone in this world. That day she got to know what solitude really meant. It was the same kind of feeling, the one of losing someone. Being alone. Being so alone. That even the darkness seemed to make you drown into it.

Solitude. Pain. Darkness. Yearning.
All those emotions which were packed and stored somewhere in the back of her heart, they were surfacing again. Again, trying to make her feel their presence. She felt them all.
She had a lingering feeling. Something very strange, telling her that Derek Christopher was some ordinary guy. Was a futile attempt because right now all the pain that her heart was succumbing to was not ordinary. He wasn't someone who comes and goes, because he was perhaps someone who made her feel again. Who made her confront her own hidden emotions.

She had been continuously pushing people away up till now. She got indulged in keeping a ridiculously large distance with people that now she was so afraid of letting someone in, because now she didn't have the strength to go through that pain again. She was constantly on a run from herself, from her emotions, from people. And in this absurd run, she forgot that pushing people away would only leave her alone. Lead her live a life of solitariness. For her running away was the best option to be opted in the situation like this rather then facing them.

As soon as she stepped out of the grand staircase, that was the entrance of the hotel, she spotted Lucas beside the car and dashed towards it. Lucas smiled at her and opened the door for her which she slammed behind her, ordering him to take her straight home. She was so lost that she didn't even acknowledge the sweetest smile he gave back.

She slumped in her seat as Lucas started the car and recalled the moment.

"I love you."
He whispered in the darkness of the night. So low that Iris could just hear a sound but couldn't figure out what he had spoken.

"What?" She asked as she stood up and slowly made her way to the window where Shane was standing. She looped her hands through his.

"Um..." he started out hesitantly, and turned around to face her. He took her hands in his and was gazing her intently.