Chapter 330:

Julie’s POV

The moment I heard and understood the significance of Steve’s shocking words, I jolted with a crazy power and violence and shook his warm palm off my heavily trembling shoulder with a sharp spasm. I shouted in a shaking tone filled with absolute rejection and panic: "Impossible! This is completely impossible, and it will never happen as long as I live!"

Steve knitted his eyebrows with features clothed in extreme sadness and sorrow over my condition. He took a wide step toward my chest that was tensed with breaths and my body that was as stiff as rock, saying in a blaming tone: "Why all this blind stubbornness, Julie? Will you remain a prisoner to the corners of this black past like this throughout your life? Three whole years have already passed, Julie... haven’t you forgotten that man yet? Hasn’t your wound healed?"

I ground my teeth with an oppression and helplessness that gnawed at my entrails, hot tears stinging my eyelids which were open in astonishment and shock at his stab to me. I ground out with exhausted, rapid breaths: "Even if fifty years pass with their days and nights... I will never love anyone else in this world after him!"

The features of Steve’s face tightened with sweeping tightness and a annoyance that choked his breaths. He looked into the depth of my eyes with extreme urgency and shouted with agitation: "Will you not evict that unjust man from your heart? Wake up, Julie, he tried to sell you like a cheap commodity!"

My features paled under the impact of his harsh stab that struck the core of my heart. I turned my head away with excessive stubbornness to conceal my weakness, and crossed my arms over my chest in a defensive, shriveled movement, saying in a faint voice: "He has nothing to do with this matter, Steve... do not drag his name into this."

He took another decisive step and cornered my escaping looks with a brotherly harshness that confronted my truth, saying in a sharp tone: "Yes, he has everything to do with it! Admit the naked truth, Julie, and stop lying to yourself! Even though you claim at the top of your voice that you hate him intensely and do not want to hear his name or his voice again, you still adore him and love him madly despite everything he did and despite everything!"

I shouted with a blind and fierce agitation that took me out of my composure, shaking my head in a hysterical denial and loss: "No! This is not true, by the curse’s sake! I hate him... I truly hate him!"

Steve fixed his sharp, piercing looks on my face in a blatant and strict challenge, crossing his arms over his chest, saying with detachment: "Prove this action to me then by reality if you are truthful... you must instantly open your heart to a new person and grant yourself a chance to live."

I retreated with my trembling body backward in genuine terror of his idea, and said in a faint, raspy tone: "Do not do this to me, Steve... please, do not."

Steve bit his lips in tightness and fury, pressing with his strict words like a sharpened knife into the hollow of my chest: "Then you still love him and are completely a hostage to him... even though he tried to sell you like a cheap commodity to one of the men, your treacherous heart still beats for his sake between your ribs!"

I felt humiliation, baseness, and weakness traveling harshly in my veins from his scathing words; because his words were indeed true, naked, and touched my deep wound with a violence that knows no mercy. But I am "Julie," the descendant of pride, and I intensely refuse for my dignity and self-esteem to be touched in this humiliating manner before any creature, even if it were my brother.

My body stood erect with towering and swelling pride, the features of my face tightening with strength and rigidity. I looked into his eyes with strict steadfastness and said in a tone as decisive as a sword: "I do not love him, and my heart will never beat for an unjust man who sold me... and I will truly prove this matter to you!"

The lines of Steve’s face relaxed a little with a mixture of doubt, confusion, and anticipation, and he said with calmness and cunning: "Fine, sister... the days are between us, and we shall see what you will do regarding this promise."

Steve turned with measured, calm steps and left the room in silence. The moment the wooden door closed behind him, I cast myself with burning pain and oppression onto the bed again, burying my head between my heavily trembling palms and beginning to think crazily and randomly of his correct words; for the bitter truth that suffocates me is that I still love and adore Robert despite all the hell he made me taste and despite everything he did to me in the past.

I jolted up, exhausted and raging from the bed, and stood in the center of the room with tensed limbs and prominent veins, shouting with malice, hatred, and nervousness to myself in the mirror: "I do not love him... I do not love him at all! And I will prove to myself before everyone first that I have forgotten him and will never love him again!"

But the moment the terrifying idea crossed my mind of being with another man, or letting another strange person touch my body or approach me other than Robert, my entrails constricted with absolute revulsion and disgust, and my limbs trembled with terror and panic, making the entire matter appear impossible and completely non-existent.

Suddenly, without prior warning, his strict features assaulted me, and I remembered with hatred how Robert now, in his velvet worlds, is certainly fucking that cursed Sarah, or perhaps a new girl and another whore he folds into his warm embraces, indifferent to my pain, while I am here drowning in my torment and tears, weeping like a wretched woman over him and dreaming of his phantom in my sleep every night! My strong jaw convulsed and I ground my teeth with blind hatred; damn you, Robert! I will certainly never accept this lowliness and humiliation ever!

I exited the room and headed directly with malice toward the kitchen. Upon my entry, I found Steve and Jake sitting together quietly at the wooden table while consuming the breakfast meal. Steve turned to me with cheerfulness and a bright face, pointing with his hand in welcome and love, saying: "Come, my dear Julie... sit to consume your breakfast."

I pulled the wooden chair with a dry, violent movement that caused an annoying sound, and sat at the table with rigidity. I darted a sharp look at Jake, stained with intense contempt, hatred, and disdain because of what had occurred between us in the room. Then I began to consume bites of breakfast with fingers convulsed and trembling under the effect of anger.

Steve took a calm sip from his cup, then said with calmness and planning: "As we agreed, in the evening we will all go to stay up somewhere to enjoy ourselves."