Whimpers of pain.
Sobbing from unleashing her past.
Revealing her humanity to me was definitely one thing I would never abuse.
With her head hung low, Nikita's fragile hands mustered every strength in her body to not cause painful indentions on the skin of my tensed shoulders.
Panting as she wills herself to not lose control, Nikita's whole body felt rigid with so much pent-up tension as if her heart was like Mt. Vesuvius on the verge to explode.
"Nikita, I can take it. I promise you. You can't scare me away. Nothing you say or do can make me stay away from you, Not now, not ever." Resting her head on my chest, I did my best to convince her that I have her back; that abandoning her was never an option.
My words of love and assurance had flipped a switch in her.
Like the key that opened Pandora's box, she finally let herself come undone in the seams.
Wailing her pain in my chest.
Screaming her trauma into the lunar breeze.
Shouting the cruel injustice of life and throwing them off the cliff.
Her nimble fingers dug deep and clutch on my arms, clinging on to me, as if I was her tether to her sanity, to her humanity.
From her early childhood before me to her marionette socialite persona, I never knew I could ever condemn anyone else, more than my very own mother.
It's cruel and rather twisted how we were conceived from two different ends of the same spectrum.
She was born out of obligation while I was born to be a trap.
Betrayed by her true love, her mother settled for her social-climbing father to escape the pain. Nikita mentioned her mother took the betrayal so hard that her grandmother couldn't even see the shell of the woman her daughter was.
Her mother thought that she loved her true love too much, and that's why the betrayal completely changed her. She settled with her father as a means to an end, despite her grandmother's explicit protest. Settling just to say that they have someone to come home with didn't sit well for both Nikita and me.
Her mother settled because being in pain was better than feeling dead inside. Nikita said that pain was the only thing that kept her alive.
Her mother did her best to be the grateful and obedient wife to her sorry excuse of a greedy asshat of a father, yet both forgot to be a parent to my precious dream.
From the moment Nikita was born, her parents leave her to her grandmother whenever they fought. From what Nikita mentioned, she barely got to finish a proper school year whenever she lived with her parents.
What's messed up is her parents' report to her grandmother that Nikita is properly going to school while gaslighting Nikita to just shut up and do as they say. Her deadbeat father fears having no access to the Obsidian fortune.
Her shallow father chugs down alcohol like water while her people-pleasing mother doesn't hesitate to sacrifice her child's emotional needs just to focus on appeasing her father.
Whenever her grandmother asks about Nikita, Nikita is glared upon as she was made to read out a well-articulated script to report to her unknowing grandmother.
Everything came crashing down on her parents when Nikita was found bleeding to death in her favorite corner of the go-to public library, by the patrolling night guard.
That's why her grandmother wasted no time and intervened, legally adopting Nikita so that only she can be the sole heiress to their business empire.
Nobody knew that the reason why Nikita started Forex trading was to earn enough money to pay for her freedom. To not have any ties to her family is something we both share.
Mother, on the other hand, was the embodiment of obsession.
My uncles have no bad blood with my birth father as my mother did the unthinkable to another woman's groom-to-be.
Mother drugged and stole my birth father from another woman, hoping that would make him choose her. One thing I knew I inherited from my father was his unwavering loyalty. No matter what happens, we will only love one woman.
I heard from Grandpa that his bride-to-be had a miscarriage due to the stress of his so-called betrayal. She was already in her second trimester with their unborn son. Unable to forgive himself for causing the death of his unborn son and losing his bride-to-be, my father went insane.
Mother had no further use for him as she was only after him for his name and status. She discarded that poor man like some soiled dish cloth. She is truly the embodiment of an opportunistic gold-digger.
I don't blame him for not wanting me. I don't even want to be me too.
It's insanely on how two screwed-up individuals gave birth to my *dream-come-true* personified. It broke my heart that we were both conceived by the worst kind of parents.
Our favorite singer Faouzia wasn't lying when she sang *hurt people, hurt people* in "Born Without a Heart". And we are the unfortunate by-products of their unhealed pain.
Finally settling in my arms, Nikita insisted, "I promise I'll work hard to do right by you. I'll do my best not to be a burden. Just give me a chance."
Wiping away her tears, I raised Nikita by her chin, asking her out of concern,
"What makes you think you're a burden?"