Serilda

Chapter 19

Serilda

"What is this?" I said confusingly looking at a video rather than any stills.

"I just recorded it all. There are photos too but I recorded most of the part. You can capture stills from the video with what you want. It gives you a large frame of photos," Kelly said as she showed me the video and photos both on the laptop. I didn't expect this from her. I had imagined bad shots but not this at all. She exceeds what I thought about her making me look at her with wide eyes.

"You are great Kelly," I told her with a bright smile which was rewarded with a small smile.

"You know how to capture shots from videos?" She asked and I gave her a nod.

"Let me go get your money," I said rising from my seat beside her in my room. Yes, we both were in my room and we were civil. Thanks to the courtesy of Erik not being home.

"I don't need it," she said making me stop mid-way. I turned and looked at her as she had gone crazy. She had a sadness over her face as she stood up from her seat.

"I will be leaving this house by the end of this week,"

"What?" I asked flabbergasted. "Why? What do you mean leaving? Did something happen? Did Erik kick you out?" I fired away questions one after another.

"No, It isn't that," she paused and looked down. "I can't work here anymore," she said with a sad tone.

"Why?" I asked her.

"I have seen the ugly colors of this house, Serilda. More like I have seen the ugly colors that you have hidden for so long," her words struck me hard.

"What do you mean?"

"You weren't what they said. You weren't the bitch or the wicked witch. All you were was innocent," My eyes grew wide and my lips parted hearing what she was saying. I was stunned. She gave me small smile before continuing.

"I connected the dots. I did my research, tried to sum up the way you acted and talked. I had access to every place in this house and I looked everywhere until I found the right answers. I realized that you were never the evil that Erik has painted or this society has. I mean for the first few months I thought that you were an evil bitch until I realized that you were actually doing nothing. I saw your loneliness and in the past few weeks, I have seen your pain, in its real and raw form. It's too much for someone to bear it," she said looking at me. Walking towards the new mirror she touched it.

"The day you were hurting yourself it was the day when I realized that I really had to look for answers. You were down and crazy and in that craziness, all you just wanted to do was hurt yourself and take away your life. I mean who does that and I realized that only a broken person would do that. When Erik wrapped his fingers around your throat I hated it but then I said to myself that it was just another case of domestic abuse maybe. But you trying to kill yourself made me open my eyes," she turned around as she told me that. Her eyes bore into mine.

"When you said that he raped you it was the last straw for me. For once I thought that he was right, that maybe you would have stepped it up but what you did next day made me believe that you weren't the wrong one but you were wronged. I looked around in Erik's room and all I found were photos of this woman who had a bit of familiarity to you. I researched and what I found made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. It was your sister. I looked up her on the internet and looked at around past four years of her life through Facebook and all I found was happiness and no pain. Then why were you the one burning in agony? It was her who ran away and you paid the price. You don't love, Erik. You never did. You love Aaron and I could always see it in your eyes. Everything just fit in like the big pieces of a puzzle," She said walking towards me.