Chapter 3 – Left Out

• Zeru
• *Ding*Dong* Ding*Dong* Ding*Dong* Ding*Dong* Ding*Dong* Ding*Dong* Ding*Dong* Ding*Dong* Ding*Dong* Ding*Dong* Ding*Dong* Ding*Dong* Ding*Dong* Ding*Dong* Ding*Dong* Ding*Dong*
• “Who the hell…?” A furious Celine opened the door. “Oh, it’s you. Can I help you?” She gave me a smile, but didn’t hide the murderous intention behind it.
• I know she is not happy that I rudely rang the doorbell incessantly, but I am in a hurry.
• “Is Tyson home today?” I asked, winded.
• “He is. Come inside first; I know you have a lot to talk about,” she said, inviting me inside.
• She took me to the dining room, where the couple was currently having dinner. Now I could see why I was not welcome here. However, I could care less and threw the envelope on the table.
• “What does this mean?” I asked.
• Tyson picked it up, look through it and sighed.
• “It means exactly as it says,” he simply answered.
• “Where is Ella?” I asked directly. There was no point in beating around the bush. Tyson knew exactly why I was here.
• “She left,” he simply answered.
• “To where, I mean?” I asked, frustrated.
• “Who is asking? Why do you want to know?” he asked me back.
• “Because she is my girlfriend. Of course, I’m worried about her.” Isn’t that obvious to him?
• “Really? Where were you last night?” he asked me instead.
• “I was with Camilla. What does that have to do with this?” God, Tyson's carefree attitude is getting on my nerves.
• “Why were you with Camilla?” Tyson continued to probe.
• “We were reconnecting,” I answered, a bit flustered. He knows all of this already. Why is he still asking?
• “Right—reconnecting. If you’ve reconnected with the woman you’ve been longing for these past five years, why bother with a woman you had given up on?” he asked.
• “Ella is still my girlfriend. Where is she?” I asked.
• “Last I saw, she had broken up with you.” Tyson pointed out the letter. “If you were home last night, you would have known, wouldn’t you?”
• “I know that, but I was not, and now she is gone. Where is she?” I asked, angry.
• “Did you love Ella?” Celine asked.
• “No,” I answered instantly. “We are just casually dating,” I replied, but felt something deep, deep down.
• “Then it is best you do not look for her. She deserved someone better than you,” Celine finalized.
• “What does that mean? Is she with someone else?” I asked, feeling the sudden urge to kill the bastard who messed with my woman.
• “A gentlemen will never disregard his girlfriend feeling like you do.” Celine replied, disappointed in me.
• “When did I do that? We both agreed to this open relationship,” I said as I took a seat at the dining table.
• “You guys have been together for five years, and the whole time you never forgot Camilla. Because of Camilla, you cracked your relationship wide open, disregarding your girlfriend's feelings. Last night, if you had gone home, you would have known she wasn't there anymore. But you didn’t, because you were reconnecting with some old flame. A real gentleman would never treat his girlfriend that way,” Tyson pointed out.
• “But she agreed to the open relationship, and she never complained,” I said.
• “We have our limits. Just because we don’t complain doesn’t mean we don’t feel pain. Women are also human. You can feel pain, so can Ella. If you don’t love her, then just leave her be and move on,” Celine said.
• “But Ella hasn't broken up with me,” I muttered.
• “Seriously, are you playing dumb, or are you really stupid?” Tyson yelled at me.
• “I…” I can’t argue with that.
• “Enough! Are you going to eat with us? If not, then leave. You are disturbing my time with my wife,” he said, turning his attention to Celine.
• “Are you going to tell me where Ella is?” I nagged.
• “No!” Tyson answered sternly and went back to being lovey-dovey with his wife.
• “I’m your brother?”
• “So,” he said without batting an eye.
• “Fine, if you don’t tell me where Ella is, I’ll find her myself.” Flustered, I got up and left.
• I dialed all of our friends to meet at our usual spot to see if any of them knew where Ella was or where she might go. Ella wouldn’t just leave without telling anyone, would she?
• When I got there, Arthur, Helen, Daisy, and Sean were already there. It was the weekend, so these people practically lived at the bar.
• “Did Ella contact any of you lately?” I asked.
• “No, I haven’t seen her since last night’s party. Why, what happened?” asked Helen.
• “She was there last night? How come no one told me?” I asked.
• If Ella was there, then she saw me and Camilla. That means she knew Camilla had returned. Fuck!
• “We thought you knew. I mean, how could you miss the most miserable aura, even outside the house?” Arthur joked, and everyone burst out laughing.
• I hated this. “Just shut up!”
• Everyone realized that I was agitated and stopped laughing right away.
• “Dude, chill out. I was just joking,” Arthur tried to brush it off, but I was furious.
• “Don’t ever let me hear you say that again,” I warned him as I walked away.
• I never knew Ella was such a joke to my friends. She was nothing more than a miserable woman to them. Is that why she stopped hanging out with us? How did this kind of bullying go unnoticed for so long?
• “What the fuck is wrong with him?” I heard Sean mutter but didn’t pay much attention to him. “I mean, Ella is just some bitch he didn’t care about. Why is he so angry with you?” I paused when I heard Ella's name.
• “I don’t know, she’s too much of a goody two-shoes for him anyway. I didn’t know he was into that,” came Helen's voice.
• “Goody two-shoes? Are you kidding me? If she is, why would she agree to be in an open relationship with Zee? She is just some whore willing to stay with him for his money,” said Tyler, and my ears burned.
• “Right,” Arthur concurs. “Do you guys remember the night he announced his open relationship and went home with Camilla?”
• “Yeah, why?” asked Helen.
• “I paid her a visit to console her, but the bitch refused to fuck me and hit me with a beer bottle. Fucking whore, just left me there bleeding,” Arthur tutted.
• “Wrong, he failed to force his dick into her and ended up with a head injury. What a loser,” Daisy mocked him.
• “I wouldn’t have to use force if she just let me fuck her willingly,” he said, and I lost it.
• I grabbed a beer bottle, turned around and *Cling! *
• Arthur fell to the floor, and I jumped on him. Everything descended into chaos then. There was pain, blood, hatred, disgust, and anguish. He was no longer a man, but a monster who hurt someone I cared about. I pummeled his face with my bare hands over and over again. By the time someone forced me off, Arthur's face was unrecognizable.
• For the longest time, we had been friends. Never once did I realize who they truly were. Ella used to follow me to parties all the time, but one night, she suddenly stopped. I didn’t think much of it because she was never a party-goer. Little did I know, reality was far worse than I could’ve imagined.
• Ella put up with it for so many years. How many things happened to her that I was left in the dark about?