What a Farce

Chapter 2

I stayed silent.

Ansel grew anxious.

“Stella, what’s wrong? Are you upset?”

“Where are you? I’ll come pick you up right now!”

He remained as attentive and caring as ever, able to pick up on my emotions and offer comfort.

“I’m at home. I don‘ t want to go to the park today.

There was a brief pause before Ansel spoke again, still trying to reassure me.

“Alright, I’ll come home right away to be with you.”

He didn’t question why I had canceled.

It wasn‘ t that his love for me was so profound that he could overlook my whims.

It was simply that he had successfully proposed to Elara in the carefully orchestrated setting.

I was merely his backup plan for when the proposal didn’t go as expected.

As Ansel walked in, I was just coming out of the bathroom.

Seeing Elara behind him, I couldn’t help but frown.

“Why did you bring her here?” I asked warningly.

Was he really so eager to rub my face in it?

Ansel, looking a bit guilty, rubbed his nose.

“Stella, I ran into Elara downstairs and found out she lives in our neighborhood. She heard you were at Solaria and insisted on coming up to apologize…”

I watched him coldly, unimpressed by his performance.

“Stella, my mom and I were in the wrong back then. I’m apologizing on her behalf. Can you find it in yourself to forgive us?‘

I turned to Ansel, my voice shaking.

“So, you think I should forgive them–both mother and daughter?”

The pain of a ruptured eardrum, the numbness from bamboo whips, the torment of seeing my

mother‘ s belongings reduced to ashes…

I didn’t ask why he fell for Elara. It would have made me seem too weak.

As I stubbornly waited for his response, Ansel‘ s guilt seemed to dissolve into the air.

“Stella, Elara was just a kid back then. She didn’t understand right from wrong. She’s been remorseful for years and has already apologized to you. Why hold onto the past so tightly?‘

The physical and emotional abuse that threw me into an endless abyss–that’s what I call the past. Refusing to forgive Elara wasn’t about being petty.

He was the one who took me to the hospital back then; he knows better than anyone how deeply I loathe my stepmother and stepsister.

Yet, he chose to fall in love with Elara and align himself against me.

When Ansel reached out to take my hand, trying to broker peace with Elara, I slapped his hand away. “Ansel, what gives you the right to ask me to forgive them?” I asked sharply.

Behind my father’s back, they abused me, tricked him into despising me and after his death, they didn’t even bother with his funeral…

Ansel looked at the back of my hand, now red from where I had slapped him and frowned in confusion and discontent.

“Stella, I’m trying to help you. You‘ re without parents now and Elara and her daughter are the only family you have left. Why hold on to the past and continue to suffer?‘

“You need to move forward, don‘ t you?”

Ansel’s words were meant to be comforting, but the impatience I knew so well was already showing through his otherwise calm and composed face.

But there was no longer the familiar tenderness and care in his voice.

I could feel my heart, already battered and broken, shatter into dust.

The pain was so intense it left me almost speechless.

Elara’s eyes, brimming with feigned sorrow, held a glint of the same smugness and provocation as before.

“Stella, it’s alright if you can’t forgive me. I’ll keep repenting and feeling guilty until you accept me as your non–biological family.”

“Get out!”