Chapter 325:

Jake’s POV

I could not truly tolerate it or remain for a single additional second; a sweeping tightness possessed me, almost plundering my breaths and suffocating me. I pushed the wooden chair violently and harshly backward and rose from my place with blind momentum, without turning to Mike or giving him any attention. I carved my way with roaring, wide strides, tensed with nervousness between the tables crowded with the infatuated audience, and went out quickly to the outer courtyard to inhale some fresh, cold air that slapped the features of my face with strength and violence.

I brought out the cigarette pack from my black coat pocket with convulsed, trembling fingers, drew a single cigarette from it, and placed it between my lips with malice, then lit it with my lighter so the flame extended in mere seconds. I took a deep, burning, and long drag from it to permeate my lungs, and exhaled the dense, gray smoke into the air, trying by every possible way and means to forget what had happened to me inside of physical confusion, and to banish that curse and strange shiver that traveled slowly into my limbs because of her provoking, sweet voice.

I rested my entire heavy torso and solid back against the rough outer hotel wall, and tilted my head backward with eyes closed in exhaustion, while my hand holding the cigarette trembled with a slight, hidden spasm as I stubbornly tried to regain my coldness and physical and psychological steadfastness.

After a period of time that seemed long and highly tedious to me, the outer door of the hotel opened, and Mike and Julie came out together with leisurely steps. Instantly, I pushed my body off the rough wall, adjusted my stance, and advanced with leisurely, cold steps toward them while throwing the burning cigarette butt onto the ground and crushing it with the tips of my shoes.

Mike looked at me with surprised facial features and knitted his eyebrows in disapproval, saying in wonder: "Jake... you’re still here? Didn’t you leave and return home after you went out of the hall?"

I rested my palms with coldness inside my long coat pockets, and shrugged my shoulders with indifference, saying with detachment: "No, I didn’t leave... I was out here inhaling the air."

Mike smiled with sweeping excitement and patted my shoulder violently, saying with emotion: "Buddy... you truly missed the most beautiful show! What Julie sang tonight was a creativity beyond description!"

I turned the looks of my burning, strict eyes toward her, and darted a look at her blue dress with intense contempt and disdain. Then a sarcastic, scathing smile sketched upon my lips, and I said with blatant, provoking mockery to break her pride: "Excuse me... her voice looks exactly like the voice of a mountain goat! I truly felt that my eardrum was tearing and bleeding because of her wailing inside!"

Mike’s face convulsed with shock and astonishment at my insolence, and he took a wide step toward me, saying in disapproval and anger: "What is this insolent talk, Jake, by heaven’s sake?!"

Julie turned her sight and her green eyes away with total indifference and detachment, and moved her palm to calm Mike’s terror, saying with a cutting coldness and a stable tone: "Stop shouting with him, Mike... let him say what he wants; his words neither advance nor delay anything."

Her calm and cold features touched me and aroused a sweeping wave of vexation and deep-seated fury in my chest. For my scathing and venomous words did not alter anything of her facial lines, and not a single eyelid of hers fluttered out of pride! I wanted to provoke her at any cost to see her brokenness again, so I tilted my torso forward, gripped my jaw, and ground out in an audible, sharp voice: "Did you hear her response, Mike? She herself knows and realizes that her voice is hideous... and very hideous, just like her face!"

But with utter, detestable simplicity, she turned her entire body and headed toward the car without answering with a single letter, completely ignoring what I said as if I were merely passing air with no existence in her life. My chest constricted with fury and malice at her movement and her ignoring me, while Mike turned to me with eyes burning with anger and sparks, saying in a loud voice: "Shame on you, Jake... what is this insolent talk and base manner?!"

I waved my hand with a petty belittlement and answered with utter, freezing coldness and detachment: "What the hell did I do? I didn’t err; I only said the truth from which you are fleeing."

Mike darted a look at me filled with intense reproach, disappointment, and tightness, then turned with tense steps and went quickly to ride behind the steering wheel of the car with nervousness. I pursued him with rapid paces, opened the door, and then rode beside him in the front seat with indifference.

Throughout the long return road, the atmosphere inside the car was silent, suffocatingly and suspiciously heavy, and not one of us uttered a word or a whisper. I remained watching the road and the darkness with rigidity and steadfastness until Mike braked with power and we finally arrived at the wooden house door. Julie turned her head toward the front with gentleness, a smile sketching upon her lips as she said with gratitude: "Thank you so much, Mike, for the ride."

I adjusted my seating with a grimace of complaint and tightness, while Mike turned to her with cheerfulness and a bright face, saying with tenderness and affection: "No need to thank me at all, Julie... whenever and wherever you wish, I am always here at your service to deliver you to any place you desire."

Julie’s smile widened, then she opened the door, descended with calm steps, and entered the house. The moment the house door closed behind her by seconds, I turned my entire heavy torso toward Mike and said with scathing sarcasm and cunning: "Damn you... all that’s left for you is to kneel beneath her feet and beg her to be pleased with you!"

Mike’s features convulsed with sharp nervousness, and he gripped the steering wheel of the car with iron force until his knuckles turned white. He caught a panting, angry breath, saying with a blatant threat: "Do you truly want me to punch you on your provoking face to make you shut up?"

I raised my eyebrows in blatant challenge, and lifted my chin upward, saying with confidence and certainty: "I am not weak now, Mike, as I used to be in the past... look at me well, I can simply defeat you and throw you to the ground with excess ease."

Mike ground his teeth with suppressed vexation and said in a sharp hiss like a snake: "This sharp tongue of yours needs to be cut from its roots instantly so that humanity can rest from your evil!"

I let out a sarcastic laugh, and moved to open the door while imitating the tone of Julie’s voice in a mocking, sarcastic, and provoking manner: "Thank you so much for the wonderful ride, dear Mike."

I descended from the car and closed the door behind me with strength, then stepped inside the hallway with steadfastness.

The moment I passed through the dark hallway, I saw her with the phantom of her blue dress as she was closing the bathroom door behind her quietly. I headed with heavy steps toward the bedroom, entered, and then closed the door, remaining there for some time lying in total rigidity over the bed, battling my thoughts.

After a period of time that was not short, I felt an intense, burning dryness in my throat and an extreme thirst pinching my entrails and demanding quenching, so I rose from the bed with momentum and exited the room. When I passed through the hallway, I noticed the bathroom light was still lit forcefully and leaking clearly from beneath the door, casting yellow shadows.

I stopped in my place with apprehension and suspicion, knitting my eyebrows in confusion and disapproval, saying to myself: "What the hell is that foolish, crazy girl doing in the bathroom all this time? And why don’t I hear the sound of water or movement?! Has she fainted, I wonder, inside the room?"

I moved my head violently in rejection to banish those foolish thoughts, and turned my sight away from the door with revulsion and disgust; for I did not care and would never care about her. Even if she fell and fainted, what business of mine was she for me to rescue her? I headed with rapid steps toward the kitchen, drew a glass cup, poured cold water into it, and gulped it down entirely in a single draught until I was quenched. I exited the kitchen and headed directly to my room, where I threw my body carelessly and lay on my bed, placing my arm behind my head in thought.

I fixed my sharp gazes on the ceiling of the dark room, and ground out with harsh, rigid, and cold features, saying in a low voice to myself with harshness: "Even if she faints and dies... didn’t she hurt my companion Steve with those words and actions of hers in the past? She truly deserves everything that happens to her."

After a few minutes, fatal curiosity defeated me, and I felt anxiety and tension gnawing my inside in a sudden, terrifying, and involuntary manner; for Julie did not look well or in her full energy at all when she exited the hotel. Despite all my provocation and scathing, wounding words to her before Mike, she didn’t answer with a single word and ignored me in a highly suspicious and strange manner, unlike her fierce habit.

I jolted rapidly from the bed with anxiety, and exited the room with wide, fast steps charged with sweeping tension. The bathroom light was still emitting forcefully and brightly from beneath the door, casting its shadows in the dim hallway. I headed toward the door directly with destructive paces, raised my iron fist, and brought it down, knocking on the wood with a violence and strength that shook the frame, and said in a sharp, raised tone to conceal my sudden fear: "Julie... are you inside, you annoying fool? Come on, open the door right now!"

She did not respond with any sound or movement, so my facial features completely convulsed. I approached closer with my torso to the wood, struck the door again with greater strength, and shouted with a grimace of complaint and tightness: "Come on, get out, you cursed scoundrel! I want to enter the bathroom; I have no time for your nonsense!"

But no response worth mentioning... a suspicious, desolate, and fatal silence prevailed that made my body hair stand completely in terror. Extreme nervousness possessed me, and I gripped my jaw with force, grinding out with a stern, cutting, and loud threat: "I swear to you... if you don’t open this cursed door right now... I will storm it and enter by myself!"

But she didn’t answer with any letter or breath. Even when I bent with my head in apprehension and placed my ear tightly against the surface of the wooden door to eavesdrop accurately, there was only absolute, deep, and terrifying silence enveloping the aspects of the entire place. I could no longer tolerate this fatal waiting; I extended my palm with speed and a hidden trembling that shocked me, and turned the iron handle with all my strength trying to open it, but it was locked tightly from the inside with the key.

I retreated a wide step backward with my body tensed and fully prepared. I gathered all my strength in the support and muscles of my foot, and with a single violent kick that I launched toward the lock, the door broke open with power and violence, rebounding to strike the wooden wall with a resounding sound that shook the corners of the house...

And in that fatal second, I froze in my place in total paralysis and my limbs stiffened. My eyes widened to their maximum extent, and I was deeply shocked by what I saw...