Chapter 319:

Julie’s POV

When the picture became completely clear before my eyes and the fog of the burning sunlight and mirage dissipated from my vision slowly, my facial features dropped in fatal disappointment and my breath constricted with slackness. I saw Mike standing in front of me in his full stature; he had knitted his eyebrows in surprise and looked directly into the depth of my eyes as he said inquiringly: "Who is Robert?"

I turned my face away from him a little in intense confusion, and moved my palms nervously over my clothes to conceal the lines of ambush and shock that sketched upon my features. Then I returned to look at him, feigned calmness, and said: "Mike... I am truly sorry, I just mistook the name due to my absent-mindedness, nothing more."

I took a deep, long breath while biting my lip in oppression and ache; for a fleeting moment, because of the intensity of my deep-seated longing that rips me apart, I truly thought he was Robert and imagined with my mind his presence and his tyrannical body before me.

The lines of Mike’s face relaxed, and he smiled with friendliness and sympathy while quietly placing his hands in his pants pockets, saying in a quiet tone to reassure me: "It’s alright, girl... no need to apologize. How are you today, Julie?"

I rested my back in surrender to the bitter reality, and gathered the edges of my coat tighter around myself to shield against the coldness of my feelings, saying faintly: "I am fine... in the best condition, and you, how are you?"

He moved his head with cheerfulness and comfort, saying: "I am also fine thanks to seeing you... " Then he tilted his torso a little downward to look at the green grass beside me and asked with hesitation and embarrassment: "Do you mind at all if I join you in this session of yours?"

I shrugged my shoulders with a light, faint smile and said gently: "It’s perfectly fine, of course... please, sit beside me."

He bent very slowly and sat on the grassy ground beside me, directing his gaze toward the calm waters of the lake which reflected the blueness of the sky, then said in a quiet, warm tone: "I see and notice always that you come constantly and on a daily basis to sit in this place in particular."

I turned my torso a little toward him, narrowed my eyes with an intelligent look and a questioning smile, and said: "And does this mean that you monitor my movements constantly, Mike?"

His eyes widened in visible, blatant confusion, and his skin color tightened with redness and shyness from my words. He waved his hands in the air with clear stammering, saying: "No... no, it’s not exactly like that, I... I mean that I... "

I rested my chin softly upon my knees gathered to my chest and watched his physical tension and movements with a light amusement, saying challengingly: "You what, Mike? Speak."

He cleared his throat forcefully to restore his calmness and steadfastness, scratched the back of his head in childish embarrassment, and said: "In fact... I also come to this lake constantly since a long time; for that reason, I see you by coincidence when you sit here all the time."

I moved my head in idle understanding and turned my gaze away from him toward the horizon, saying in an ordinary tone: "Mmm... fine, I understand the matter."

A quiet silence prevailed between us for mere seconds, then he turned to me again with interested features and asked with passion: "Will you sing tonight in the hotel hall as usual?"

I adjusted my seating comfortably over the grass and nodded my head affirmatively with confirmation: "Yes, certainly, I will sing tonight."

His eyes ignited with obvious excitement and joy, and he said with a wide smile that showed his goodness: "That’s wonderful... I will certainly come to watch you and listen to your beautiful voice."

A gentle smile sketched upon my lips and I said: "It pleases and honors me indeed, Mike."

Mike quieted for a moment with thinking, scrambled facial features, and rubbed his palms together with obvious hesitation and anxiety before uttering his question: "Julie... in fact, I want to ask you about something that occupies my mind regarding you."

I fixed the look of my green eyes on his face and said with encouragement for him to speak without fear: "Yes, you can do so, of course... ask whatever you wish."

He took a deep breath and tilted his head, asking with curiosity: "Are you yourself the one who chooses the songs you perform... or does the hotel management request from you and impose upon you to sing specific and certain songs?"

I answered him with simplicity and total calmness while intertwining my fingers around my knees: "No, the management does not interfere... I alone choose them with complete freedom."

He knitted his eyebrows in confusion and pursued in a low, warm, and interested tone: "Then... why do you always choose and prefer sad, gloomy, and painful songs every time you sing?"

I swallowed a dry, burning lump in my throat that almost choked me, and tried with all the strength I was given to display highly natural, cold, and indifferent facial features, saying with feigned, lying indifference: "They are merely ordinary songs and melodies that please me, Mike... they carry no other dimensions."

He neared his torso to me by a small step to become close, looked into the depths of my eyes with highly serious and quiet features, and said in a warm voice carrying a lot of sincerity: "In truth and without any lie... I feel that you hide behind those smiles a deep sadness."

In that exact second, my entire body stiffened as if a lightning bolt struck me, and my chest constricted with a hidden dread and terror that dominated my senses. Damn this! Was he truly able to see and penetrate this fortress clearly? Did he permeate into my distorted and broken depths despite my brilliant pretense of happiness, cheerfulness, and strength before everyone all the time? Did he see and examine my brokenness with such ease?

I tried hard, for the thousandth time with my pride, not to shake or have my eyes tear up, and I drew a cold, feigned smile upon my face and said in a dry voice that cut off the discussion: "No, Mike... your intuition is wrong. This is not true at all, I am in the best condition."

He retreated with his back backward in total surrender to my rebuff, turned his gaze toward the lake once more, and shook his head, saying quietly: "I don’t truly know... perhaps I am indeed mistaken in my estimation."

I wanted intensely and powerfully to rid myself of this annoying interrogation and inspection into my deep feelings, and thought quickly of changing the subject of the talk in any manner to distance him from me. So I said spontaneously and naturally without thinking: "Right... I remembered, Jake came to town."

The moment I uttered his name Jake before his eyes, something terrifying occurred. Mike’s entire body jolted and his movement froze completely as if an electric current shocked him. He turned to me with supernatural speed, his eyes widened in sweeping astonishment, shock, and total paralysis hitting all his gentle expressions, and he uttered in a shocked, sharp, and trembling voice: "What the hell are you saying?! "

I answered in extreme surprise and wonder at his violent and exaggerated reaction: "Yes, indeed... Jake came here yesterday... he is present in the town right now."

Instantly, Mike rose from his place with a driving and absolute madness as if a venomous snake had bitten him. He stood towering with a body trembling entirely in a convulsed, angry manner; his gentle, good features suddenly turned into a terrifying cruelty, and burning rage ignited in the veins of his face and neck.

His eyes filled with sparks and malice in a highly strange and frightening way that I had never witnessed in him before, and he roared in a sharp voice: "Today... today in particular, I will kill him with my own hands!"