TO MY SURPRISE, WHEN I RAN BACK TO THE SURFACE, I found both Dean and Marie there, sitting on two chairs he must have put there, watching me. I took my phone from my back pocket, turned the music off, and looked at the hour. 11 am.
"Your face is red," he stated.
I scoffed, "Good morning for you too, brother. So, what are you doing here? Aren't you hangover after drinking so much last night?"
"He was but I gave him a big mug of coffee and some medicine to help on it. And we came because I wanted to see the lake, and I kind of expected that you would be here. So, we came," she said, caressing her belly.
Dean caressed his golden hair, "What she said. So, why were you crying?"
"I wasn't crying!"
He gave me a look, "You remember that your skin is pale, right? And that every time you cry you are unable to hide it?! Well, your face is all swollen, especially your eyes, Lizzy. So, instead of lying, why don't you tell me why you were crying?"
Sigh, "You are really annoying."
"I tell him that every day."
I chuckled to her words, but then turned my eyes to him, "I was reminiscing."
Dean pressed his lips together, giving me that suspicious look, "The accident from 15 years ago, or about your time with the boy that resides in that dangerous heart of yours?"
"Don't be an ass."
"So, it was about him," he grinned.
Marie looked from me to him, from him to me. "Who? I want to know it too. Are you in love with someone right now, Freya? Is that what Dean meant when he mumble that nonsense in the dinner last night?" Oh, so she was paying attention.
"Can I tell her?" He asked and I glared at him. "Oh, come on. Let me at least share the secret with her, now that you aren't in hostile waters with each other anymore. Besides, she's my wife, she won't tell anyone."
"No!"
He sulked, "Please. It's hard to keep a secret from her. I'm not such a good liar like you, Lizzy. I might end up telling someone if I keep it just between us. But if you stop being so stubborn and let us tell Marie, then I might feel more at ease for keeping this."
"Dean, damn it. I shouldn't have told you."
"Too late. Now I know. So, tell her too, please. Besides, she studied with you two, so she'll know about it better than me."
Marie bit her bottom lip, "I can keep secrets."
I took a deep breath, staring from him to her, then I sat on the third chair he had reserved for me, took out my gear and massaged my feet. "You better keep your mouth shut, Marie, or I'll get mad. Got it?" She nodded excitedly. "Alright. You can tell her, dumbass."
Letting out a victorious sigh, he turned to her, "It's RC. Rhys Choi. Her ice-skating partner with whom she constantly fought in class. Lizzy told me he was the only boy she ever had feelings for, but that she didn't do anything or tried anything because he loathed her, and because their ice-skating coach specifically came to her alone and told her that she couldn't nurture romantic feeling for Rhys, because that would fuck their ice-skating chemistry up. Something like that."
She turned to me, her eyes wide open, "Oh shit," but there was more to that than just surprise. "Oh, shit!" Marie yelled, her eyebrows going all up.
I blinked, not knowing what to expect from that. "What is it? Why are you with that look on your face, Marie?"
Gulping, she looked at Dean who was also staring at her confused, than back to me. "You were in love with the exchange student from Korea?" A nod. "Your ice-skating partner?"
"You are making me anxious, Marie-Estella, damn it," I pushed my hair back, with my fingers, obviously anxious. "Be straightforward. What do you know that I don't? What happened?"
My bully-turned-sister-in-law gave me an apologetic look, "I wasn't me, but De Villiers kind of did something." I froze. "He went to Rhys Choi with his groups of jerks, and intimidated him. That was after you kissed him to piss me off. He told him that even though he was your partner in ice-skating, he shouldn't try anything funny because… you were his. Since De Villiers's mother was the principal of the school, no one messed with him, as you know."
I saw red, "That son of a bitch did what?"
She gulped, "And that's not all. Because you two were partners, De Villiers was very jealous since you seemed to want to spend more time with Rhys Choi, than with him. He bullied the boy for the rest of the year, but never enough to leave physical marks since you would be able to notice. And you seemed unaware of all that was happening between them. Since I was angry at you, I didn't mentioned, but I thought you wouldn't care, because to me it seemed like you hated Rhys Choi too."
Feeling a murderous intent flood my mind, it was incredibly hard to breath, "I can't believe this. Rhys Choi was bullied because of me, because that little bitch believe we had something going on just because we kissed once. Now I get why he acted so weird on the lasts months we trained and performed together before I left for the US."
Dean clenched his fists, "Is this De Villiers, the boy you liked in school? Christopher De Villiers?" She nodded, wary. Then Dean turned to me, "He still lives in London, Lizzy. While his mother was the principal of Decaelis Academy, his father is the CEO of a cosmetics company called Beauty De Vil, and he works there as the vice-president under his father."
"You shouldn't be telling me this, Dean. I might commit a crime. Do you want me to go to jail?"
His grin mirrored my own, "Do you want help?"
Marie gasped, "You two are joking right?" When I glared at her, her eyes widened, "Do you still like Rhys Choi, Freya? Even though you probably won't ever see him again, since none of us knows his actual Korean name?"
Putting the uncomfortable feeling aside, I bit the insides of my cheeks, "I don't expect anything to ever happen in this case, Marie. I'm aware that I'll probably never see him again, and that's okay. Besides, my feelings were always one-sided. But I never knew about what De Villiers did, so I couldn't do shit about it. It pains me that Rhys might have thought that I knew about it, and was complacent."
"I get it, Freya, but instead of going there and messing with him in person, can't you use one of your tech things to, I don't know, mess his career up? Yesterday you said you were rich and your own boss, didn't you? So, can't you just mess with his company?" Oh, so she was only worried about me going to him myself?