Chapter 3 Greeting Nightmare Again (Minerva)

• The splashing of water was both music and noise to her ears.
• The more she soaked in the shower, the more her teeth gritted due to the frigid waters. She quickly gets out from the freezing bathroom that even her little circular mirror was clouded as a result of the cold shower.
• She wrapped her slender body and her now-circular womb in a forest-green bath towel. Her eyes caught what seemed to be falling from the outside sky that made her realize why the water is so cold—snow.
• Today is the first day of snow in the city—the first day of winter. Now that’s what you call total misfortune, she thought. Minerva only has one thick jacket left for the first day of winter. Two, if you’re gonna include Derrick’s trench coat that happens to be still in his former home.
• She will get their remaining things from the now-sold house after her appointment from her ob-gyn. At least her ob-gyn was the sister of her mother’s husband. The doctor was her mother’s sister-in-law, to be simple.
• Her mother volunteered to answer the expenses for her check-up. At least in that way, her mother, who now has another family, still manages to “care” for her since the death of her biological father five years ago.
• Minerva was definitely still lucky amidst her unluckiness oozing up to its brim. She still has a mother that has still a bit of kindness left in her heart—that is if she still has one.
• Her phone rings. She was still munching her sunny-side egg when Mariella called her. She seized a glass of lukewarm water and immediately drank it in just a matter of seconds.
• “Wait for me, Mariella,” Minerva muttered then shove the remaining fried egg and French toast into her small mouth.
• Before she could speak further, three knocks interrupted her simple breakfast.
• ‘Perhaps it's Ella…’ Minerva mused. “Coming!”
• When she opened the door, Minerva was flabbergasted. It was not her best friend, Mariella Chu.
• It was her mother.
• “Hello dear! I came to take you to your doctor, who happens to be my beautiful sister-in-law. I already phoned Mariella as she was also having an immediate family matter to attend.”
• Minerva was about to open her mouth but chose not to as she remembered that she was still chewing her French toast and egg—the only breakfast she had. Perhaps the only breakfast she will be having from now on.
• In less than an hour, Minerva and Rhea—her mother—were now driving towards the hospital to which the ob-gyn was waiting.
• ***
• The hospital’s scent was new to her senses. She felt like puking on the very floor of the elevator. Or was it just because she was pregnant?
• Either way, the meeting with her ob-gyn was absolutely no problem. It’s about the bills that made her head totally ache.
• “What’s the price of you helping me?”
• Her mother briefly looked at her from head to toe before answering, “Nothing.”
• Nothing. That was all Rhea said throughout the entire time. From the very moment they stepped in the hospital to the time that her check-up was finished, her mother’s mouth was wholly shut—as if she wittingly sewed it shut to avoid conversation with her.
• Minerva cleared her throat before speaking again…alone this time.
• “Well, if that’s the case, I will still pay you as soon as I find a new job. I resigned from the high school I was teaching the moment I got pregnant.”
• “The moment you got pregnant? Or the moment you were about to give the pussy between your legs to a man named Derrick?” Her mother’s voice was thundering in the midst of the four narrow walls of the elevator.
• It took all the remaining strength that was left of her in slapping her blonde-haired mother. She was entirely insulted by that tone, by her words. She said there was no price in helping her during her pregnancy. Yet, it seems that a liberated scold was the price she silently chose to offer Minerva.
• To be honest, she could take her down and choke her to death into the very lustrous floor of the elevator if it wasn’t the fact that her words somehow resonates honesty, that there is actually truth in her words. Her mother left her for another man on the verge of her father’s terminal illness. That’s how maleficent her mother was and is probably until now.
• Minerva absolutely gave it all up just to live under the same roof with Derrick, who happens to be six feet below the ground now. And her mother will just insult them for that, insult her for that.
• ‘That is why they always say to never give your entirety to someone, even if you love the person more than you do to yourself.’ Minerva’s own words bounced into the walls of her mind.
• Her fists are still clenched, ready to punch her own gold-digger mother who left her own family for another man: for an asshole billionaire.
• She was, in fact, the first to witness them having sex in her own parents’ room. Imagine banging your other man in the bed you and your husband shared. That was wholly awful, unlawful, and definitely inhumane. That is also the reason why Minerva chose to stay with her father aside from the fact that she cannot bear to gaze at the eyes of her mother’s man—who also looks at her lustfully, as if inviting her to be fucked as well.
• Her attention drew back to her mother as the elevator opened, signalling the arrival to the basement to where her mother’s car parked.
• “It’s not that, Rhea,” she cleared her throat. “I already had planned on resigning beforehand. Besides, me and Derrick planned my pregnancy anyway.”
• That was a lie. Well, a white lie. She would rather lie than to be shamed more by this bitch who calls herself her mother. That is also the reason why she addresses her by her name rather than calling her mother. A mother is such an honourable and glorified title and the blonde woman in front of her doesn’t even deserve a second to be called one.
• Minerva was about to say more when, in the corner of her eye, she spotted the man that she had always prayed she would never meet or see or smell again.
• It was her mother’s husband—Rhea’s sex-loving man.