16: Elise

I STARTED eating as soon as Alia landed steaming plates on the table, and I took my meds as soon as I had a few mouthfuls of food in my stomach so pretty soon, the pain of my injuries started to get dull, too.
I told her what happened in between the bites and chews of my breakfast, but I didn’t tell her how the bitch ripped my dress and exposed my boobsies to Gian.
I didn’t know why she often teased me about him.
Okay, I knew. It was because Gian was hot and delicious. It’s just like her to gloss over the fact that Gian’s type were statuesque, beautiful women, not diminutive and small-boned like me.
The fact that I was in proximity to someone like him was all that was needed for my romantic friend to dream that Gian would suddenly forget all his preferences and fall in love with me.
So, even before I finished telling almost all of it, my poor friend was mad as hell. She was so angry that she waved her spoon and fork in the air like they were swords and that she was in the middle of a revolution right there on our kitchen.
“Is she crazy?! What is wrong with her?! You have to sue her! This is not right! Just because she’s filthy rich and her family is filthy rich, she thinks she could just get away with a crime like this?” The fork pointed uncomfortably near my nose. “Your family is richer than hers, no one just knows it, and once they find out about this it will be war, Elise. C’mon, let’s go and sue the fucking bitch. I’ll be with you all the way to Malacañang!”
I was trying not to laugh.
What had the president of the country got to do with this?
“I am not going to sue,” I told her. “But…” I said before she started another tirade of curses against Sheila again, “her family needs to make good on their promise to send her to rehab ASAP. I got my medico-legal last night. I can still file. It’s just… her grandmother begged us to settle so I’ll have Madam Soniah’s lawyers deal with it.”
“But—”
“She was as pissed off as you. She wanted me to sue like you do. It’s just…”
I could see Sheila in my mind again last night, and I was convinced she needed psychiatric treatment more than being locked in a cell… for now. I could settle. Also, she must never ever get near me again. “I just want a settlement and the promise I will not have to see her again,” I told my friend. “At least… not alone.”
“Whaaaat-hh?! But why? Look at you! My god! I never imagined in my entire life I’d ever see you with a black eye! And given by whom? She’s not even sexy—she’s as thin as a stick! If your parents find out about this—”
“Oh, no. Don’t do anything. Don’t tell them,” I protested right away. Alia also grew up in Puerto Galera and was so close to my family that she called my stepfather Itay and my mother Inay as I and Anna did.
Jason was her cousin on her paternal side, and he was my cousin on my maternal side. You could say we were almost relatives, except the bloodline arrow missed the target a centimeter to the left.
“They will all rush here and they’ll be blaming poor Gian. He’s already blaming himself too much as it is.”
A grimace marred Alia’s face. “You’re right. They’re going to blame him and the Verrazzanos. It happened in their house, under their very noses.” But her face went back to its fierce expression. “If I see that bitch ever, her gums will be the only part of her body that’ll be safe from me!”
It was her favorite expression when she was angry, so I wasn’t that bothered. “I also had to consider that Madam Soniah and Sheila’s grandmother are childhood friends. So I’m giving that woman just this chance to settle out of court. I also know Madam Soniah will not rest until Sheila is confined in a private and expensive rehab somewhere where she can’t easily escape. It’s going to be like jail for her, I’m sure. The correct one.”
“Just rehab? That’s it? Rehab, after what she’s done to you? Have you seen yourself in a mirror, Elise? It’s like a soil compactor rolled over you, woman!”
“If it’s not going to be a rehab clinic, it could be a mental hospital,” I continued. “Something’s wrong with her. A psychiatrist will give her a diagnosis and I have a feeling she would be confined in rehab in a mental hospital,” I mused loudly. “If you’d only seen her eyes…” I thought out loud. “Manic… crazy. Even Gian said a while ago that she’s mental.”
Alia’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “He did?”.
I nodded as I finished off the potatoes on my plate. “Yes, he said she was a mental case that day she went to his office and made a scene there.” Alia knew about that. “So there is a possibility it’ll be a mental institution but they’ll say she’s in rehab. You know how these wealthy families are. It’s not like she’s the only wealthy kid who went through this.”
“Wow. I really can’t believe you’d rather that than file a case so she would spend her time in jail? I mean, she can go to a mental institution after her stint in the Bilibid. Not all mental cases do the things she did. ”
“It’s not like it is OK with me. Of course, I wanted her to pay for what she did to me. But if I file a case, it’ll reach the media, and they’ll try to find out more and my background could get exposed before I can be ready. It's not that simple.”
She thought about it for a minute, then she took a deep breath. “It still is not okay to get beaten up, Elise,” she concluded, thoroughly dismayed about my situation.
She got up from her seat, circled the table toward me, and poked at me with her pointer finger.
“Ouch! What did you do that for?”
“Exactly my point.” She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at me sardonically. “I bet it hurts all over, and that’s not even a bruised spot. If your Oma Beatrice learns about this, I will bet you, they will want to sue.”
“I’ll get exposed—”
“God! They should learn who you really are so they’ll be afraid of you!”
I sighed again.
I decided to change the subject or distract her with something else until she cooled down.