Reality Check
**Sarah**
In the morning, I felt sad and lonely, but by evening, a scheduling conflict dilemma arose: I had plans to have dinner with both Hillary and Enrico.
Indecisive about whom to have dinner with, before I could make a decision, Hillary arrived at the hotel. We ended up talking a lot, and I was able to vent about everything that was happening in my life, including the dilemma of whether or not to contact Kael, who still hadn't shown any sign of life.
Since Enrico was also staying in the same hotel, I decided to postpone the important conversation we needed to have. After Hillary returned to the hotel where she was staying, Enrico came to visit me in my room.
"At least take off your shoes!" I scolded him, bothered by the fact that he had entered my room and sprawled on the bed without caring about dirtying everything with his shoes on.
"Oh, you're such a pain," he casually remarked.
"Just because I complained about your shoes on the bed, I'm considered annoying? Is that right, Enrico?" I questioned, crossing my arms, indignant.
After the comforting conversation I had with Hillary, I felt lighter, and we agreed that I had given Kael too many chances, and it was time for him to prove if he wanted me. The lack of messages, in the end, conveyed a clear message of disinterest and showed how low I was on his list of priorities.
"It's not just that," Enrico replied after thinking for a few seconds. "You always want to do everything right and please everyone, but you end up getting the short end of the stick. I've told you this before."
Hearing those words stung a bit, but the truth always causes discomfort.
"I'm not as naive as you think," I tried to retort.
"I like you, Sarah," Enrico said, changing his tone to a gentler one and sitting on the bed, leaning against the headboard.
"It doesn't seem like it," I said, walking over to where he was sitting and also sitting on the bed. "You're always criticizing me."
"I'm always trying to show you that you're a pawn in Rachel's hands."
"I don't understand you, you know... you always insist that you love my sister, but you never miss a chance to speak ill of her."
"I'm not speaking ill; I'm telling the truth," he countered. "If your life were a movie, she would be the villain."
I looked at him in disbelief, wondering how he could think that way and what he was basing it on!
I asked Enrico this question, and he smiled, seeming to know facts that I didn't, and once again, discomfort settled in.
"Based on what I see her do to you," he replied.
"Give me examples!"
"I've told you before, but let's go through it..." He began to count on his fingers. "She used you as bait for me, making you pretend to be her when we first met. She took the guy who was interested in you for herself, even though she didn't feel anything for him. She doesn't reach out to you or respond when you call and only remembers your existence when she needs something. And to make matters worse, she went back to Seattle yesterday, at the request of the man I'm sure you love, without even bothering to tell you about it. In other words, Kael Graham sent his assistant to London just to take Rachel back to the United States with him."
The bombshell revelation Enrico had just made left me in shock as if someone had told me that dogs could talk.
"Are you sure about this?" I asked, incredulous.
"Of course I'm sure," he confirmed. "I went to look for Rachel at the hotel where she stayed after leaving Lorenzo's apartment, and I found a well-dressed guy named Ryan, sent specifically to pick her up from London."
I tried to hold back the tears, but they flowed from my eyes. I truly believed that Ryan was my friend, but apparently, his boss's orders always come first, no matter what. Not even to tell me the truth!
"You need to be stronger, Sarah," Enrico said, unmoved by my tears. "Enough of suffering in silence, girl! It's time to react as well."
"I... don't know... what..." I tried to speak between painful sobs, sighing, and attempting to control my crying. "I don't know what you mean."
With his usual bluntness and lack of delicacy, Enrico wiped away the tears streaming down my face and pushed the hair that had fallen in front of him behind my ear.
"Look, I know very well how painful it is when someone we love hurts us. Especially when it's those we believe should love us and not hurt us," he said, still in the task of controlling my tears. "But you have to learn that in life, either you fight back, or you get crushed."
“I'm so tired of being hurt, Enrico,” I confessed.
“Then fight back! Make some decisions and go to extremes to get what you want.”
“But I don't think it should be that way.”
“But that's how it is! Either you go with the flow or you get dragged along.”
Enrico's worldview was excessively cynical, and when I calmed down a bit, I planned to try to understand why he thought that way.
One thing was certain: he had faced many hardships and built a life motto based on that, but I had no intention of following his rules because that wasn't how I wanted to live.
“I don't want to be like that,” I said. “I don't want to hurt people.”
“Then learn to live without them and don't let their actions affect you so much,” he said, looking directly at me.
Enrico was a handsome man, but his rough manners and inflexible mindset didn't spark any interest in me, and there was no romantic or sexual interest coming from him, which had been clear from the first moment we met.
“It's not as simple as you're saying.”
“It's up to you to make it simple or complex, Sarah.” he insisted. “But crying and giving in to sadness won't solve anything; in fact, you're just wasting time. Time that could be used to be happy and find something that pleases you, something that fulfills you, whether that's "things" or people.”
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