CHAPTER 74: SET ME FREE

My entire being was experiencing a total and complete shutdown, as if the main circuit was plugged off and there’s nothing I could feel at this point but numbness due to the excessive amount of pain and anger I had been feeling seconds ago.


I never expected nor imagined that I would be involved in yet again another horrendous incident and another vicious attack of pain. All along I thought I got over it. I thought I was done with that part where I would and could no longer feel these tremendous adverse emotions, which I had been through for the past several years.


But I was profoundly wrong, because here I am now in this situation all over again, though I am the victim this time and not the culprit, but the effect was merely just as the same as it was before. It severely pounded both my mind and heart with excruciating and ground-breaking intensity that left me feeling insensible and paralyzed.


As Lewis was trying to subjugate my wrath and stabilize my physical retaliation with his ardent kisses, I was searching inside my heart what I currently feel for him. I am sure that my love for him does undeniably exist, but after everything he mistakenly committed, I must admit that the level of love I have for him was now unsteady and hanging on a thin rope at this point in time.


No woman in her right stable mind would forgive easily, not to mention forget, the transgression her partner had intentionally or unintentionally committed behind her back. I am fully aware that Pamela hasn't forgiven me until now for what I did to them six years ago, so everything that was occurring now wasn’t easy for me either.


What Lewis has done to me wasn’t plainly an accident or a simple mistake. I couldn’t even call it a mistake, because from how I understood it, he sinned against me not just once but twice. Giving him the benefit of a doubt that what he was claiming about him being drugged the previous night was true enough, how come he chose to sin again to me earlier if it was really a mistake?


Mistakes occurred only once, but if you are to repeat the act again and again, then it wasn’t a mistake at all. It becomes a choice. And that’s one thing that crushes my heart right now and causes me to react against his will to amend with me, because Lewis chose to sin again regardless of his reasons this time. He could have dragged Nicole out of his room earlier, but he didn’t. For whatever reason he may have to just let what happened earlier happen, it was still highly incomprehensible and utterly unforgivable and I hate him for that.


He continued his onslaught on me, I am no longer resisting him out of exhaustion, not just physically, but emotionally. My eyes were bloodshot with tears and it continued to pour endlessly. He must have sensed that my body calmed down from retaliating, because his grip on my hands and the way his lips were pressed on mine suddenly became lighter and less forceful.


If we were in a much different situation and weren’t in a conflict, I would be swept away by the way he was kissing me now. The warmth of his lips brushing over mine and how his body was pressed against me as I could literally feel the loud beating of his heart, my heart could have melted instantly and I would have been in cloud nine right now, if not due to the current problem we are facing.


He suddenly freed my lips and let his forehead touch mine. He was catching his breath as he spoke, “Baby, I love you. Please I beg you, believe me. I have sinned against you and I am asking for your forgiveness. I promise not to do it again. I was really planning to tell everything to you, because I didn’t wish for you to know it from Nicole. She threatened to disclose to you what happened to us if I didn’t do what she asked of me. I got scared, Penelope. I was so frightened to lose you, so I didn’t have a choice but to give in with her demands earlier. But after what occurred to us a while ago, I had decided to take the risk and tell you everything myself, so she wouldn’t have the chance to manipulate me and blackmail me ever again. Please believe me, Penelope. I’m deeply sorry, please forgive me. I don’t want to lose you, Baby.”


I could feel the sincerity of his words. There was a part in my heart believing him and everything he told me about, telling me to give him a chance to redeem himself and prove his worth, but a much bigger part of it, together with my mind, dictates me not to listen to him and do what I must have to do, which was to end our relationship and stop him from reentering to my life.


“I can’t.”


I summoned the remaining strength left in me to push him in full force so I could breathe, because his nearness was suffocating me and making it even harder for me to decide. He stepped back a few inches, giving me a chance to escape him, which eventually led my feet to run swiftly away from him and head towards the door. But the minute I held the doorknob, his strong build crushed me at the door and pinned me helplessly, trapping me and caging me once again in between firmed arms.


“Penelope! I can’t let you just go knowing how furious you are to me now. Please! Believe me, Baby! I love you!”


“If you truly love me, then set me free.”


He was literally taken aback at what I said. His eyes were filled with sorrowful tears as his body was trembling vigorously. It pained me more that I had to be stiff and rigid with the way I treated him now, that I had to harden my heart at him and be as cold as ice, but he couldn’t blame me for reacting this way. He has sinned and this was my punishment to him.


“Ask anything from me, Penelope, just not that one. I can’t compel myself to give what you want. Please, Baby, give me another chance. Please, I beg you. Have mercy on me, Penelope, don’t give up on me. I will do everything, anything you ask of me, just for you to forgive me” He profoundly pleaded before kneeling in front of me and clung his arms tight around my legs, weeping loudly as his shoulders were shuddering with intensity that completely shredded my heart into pieces.


“That’s all I ask of you, Lewis. Set me free. I love you, but I had to free myself from that love, because I am suffocating from it. If you really love me, then you have to let me go. You can’t force me to stay in this relationship half-hearted, that would be unfair to the both of us. So please, for both our sake, set me free as I set you free as well.”


“Please… Baby… Don't do this to me... Don’t leave me, Penelope.”


There was a chilling and eerie silence that filled our atmosphere right after he uttered those pleading words. I patiently waited for him to grant me what I wished for. I am most certain that it was also hard for him to take heed of my request, but it was the right thing to do, because I could no longer see myself being happy with him with our current situation now. There will never be a time where I will see him or look at him without being reminded of his treachery to me. I am not even certain if I could last a minute being in the same room with him, nor with Nicole, without feeling the pain they severely and excruciatingly caused to me.


He didn’t say a word as he continued to wail. After several more minutes of waiting, his grip on my legs loosened before he finally let them go and slowly stood then walked away from me, with his shoulders slackened and head hanging low. I had to castigate myself from running back to him and hugging him tightly. I held the doorknob with a trembling hand as my tears poured down in rapid succession.


‘I hate to leave us like this, Lewis, but I had to. It pained me more to take this lonely and sorrow-filled path I’ve chosen for the both of us, because God knows how much I had loved you. It would aggravate me more if I would stay in our relationship knowing that I couldn’t look at you with the same love I once did.’


Without looking back, I opened the door and walked out of his room and totally out of his life.