My dear little broccolis 💚💚💚
💚 So remember that this pic is RATED M, and it is not only for the sexy times. Some dark moments will be approached in this story, and they can trigger some people. This is a fair warning to remind you that this story sets place in a dark world, which means it is bound to mountains dark themes.
Love, Mina 💚💚💚
.
Chapter 57: The True Meaning of Friendship (3,0K)
‼️IF YOU'RE A GUEST REVIEWER
CHECK AT THE END‼️
💚 FIRST OF ALL, my thoughts go to everyone across the world. This is a difficult time for us all, and I hope none of you or your closed ones is affected. I am not a doctor, nor a politician but don't fall into panic and just respect the security measures. Be as clean, if not cleaner than usual. Eat healthy food. And look after yourself and your loved ones. Stay indoors as much as possible, until we can do something about this terrible disease that is striking us all. Those are the times to look for one another and not be selfish. I know this sounds corny, but after seeing people buying 15 packs of toilet rolls and fighting for yet another, I just feel that we're missing out on what really matters. This virus doesn't discriminate and doesn't tire. We should fight against it, not against our peers for an extra pack of toilet rolls …
💚 Anyway, IF YOU REVIEWED, GUEST OR NOT, CHECK HERE. I know that many of you hate Ana (and me), but the story was always going this way. A few of you picked up on that, which I am glad of because it means that I did something right somewhere. Still, for those who feel like Ana was out of character, you need to re-read a few of the Ana centric chapters. I have many things to say about all of this, but I will wait for the end of the story to explain myself …
.~°~. .~°~. .~°~.
Mia's PoV
It was the middle of the night, when Mia's phone rang, waking her up from her sleep and putting her in a bad mood. Though she was a studious person and an early bird, Mia still liked her sleep. She cursed at herself for forgetting to put her phone on silence like she usually did so no one would interrupt her sleep, and was surprised to see Suzie's number appear on her screen.
She had met Suzie, Ryan's girlfriend, a few months ago during a dinner that Christian had at his place and actually quickly bonded with the girl. The two of them had a few days out together, and though she liked Ana and Kate, Mia liked being with Suzie a bit more. Probably because the bartender had a more relatable life than the two socialites.
With a groggy voice, she answered the call, hoping that nothing bad had happened to the black girl for her to call at two in the morning.
"I'm sorry to wake you up, Mia, but I didn't know who else to call."
Mia sat up straight in her bed, concerned by the worry she could hear in her friend's voice. "What's wrong?" She asked, suddenly completely alert.
"Christian is at the bar, almost passed out."
"Are you sure this is Christian?" She inquired, perfectly aware of her best friend's strict diet and conduct. There was no way Christian would ever get drunk, even less in a bar where he knew people. This was simply not Christian.
"Well … yeah. I think I remember what my husband's best man looks like," Suzie snapped, worrying Mia more than reassuring her.
"Okay, I'm on my way."
She got out of bed, trying to figure out what happened for Christian to let himself go like that. Christian liked control, and being drunk certainly didn't qualify as having control over his life. For a moment she hesitated, pondering on whereas she should call a cab, or go over the second option. But then, she rationalised herself thinking that whatever state she was going to find Christian in, he would not like being like that in front of a stranger.
Which was why, she took the lift to Ethan's and Jose's and got in the apartment, praying that she would not disturb them in some intimate moment. For a moment, she hesitated, realising that she should have called Jose instead of going into his apartment, and so she simply knocked on the door of their bedroom. A few seconds later, Jose's head popped out of the room, showing obvious traces of sleep, though his whole body was in a defensive position.
"We need to go pick up Christian," Was all Mia said. It seemed to take barely half a second for the information to go to Jose's brain before he nodded and went back inside his room.
She waited a few minutes, and when Jose reappeared, they left to take his car. He did not ask a single question, simply driving to Suzie's bar as Mia told him, and Mia wondered if it was because he was anticipating whatever might have happened to Christian, or if his brain was still groggy with sleep.
The car ride seemed to last forever to Mia, and when they finally arrived, she almost jumped out of the car, rushing inside the bar and letting Jose deal on his own with parking. There she found Christian arguing with Suzie who apparently refused to give him any more alcohol.
"I should have brought my camera," Ryan said behind her, startling her a little. Mia turned her head to look at Ryan who was harbouring a mocking smile, looking at the scene between his friend and his wife, but Mia did not hold it against him. She knew that Ryan had always tried to make Christian loosen up and that he was probably seeing the whole thing as Christian finally doing so.
When they approached the table, Suzie sighed of relief and explained, "When I came to do my shift, he was already on a few drinks. I'm pretty sure he finished a whole bottle of scotch, if not more. You deal with him."
Mia walked to Christian with worry, but he barely acknowledged her, playing with his empty glass sullenly. She heard behind her Jose talk with Suzie and Ryan, and she could actually feel his gaze on Christian and her.
"What happened, Christian?" She asked, resting a friendly hand on his back.
He simply shook his head, apparently not willing to talk, but his face showing sadness, which made Mia feel for him. She was so used of him never showing any sort of emotions that she wasn't prepared to see that sort of anguish on her best friend's face. In fact, the emotion even felt foreign on Christian.
Ryan and Jose came to the table, and both of them hoisted Christian up, each throwing one of his arms around their neck before they walked to the car. Mia climbed in the back with Christian, who lay down, using her laps as a pillow. She looked down, a part of her starting to come up with an explanation for Christian's behaviour, but the optimistic part of her hoped that she was wrong.
For a while, no one said a word, the silence being only broken by Christian mumbling incomprehensible words in the back. Mia saw how Jose would often check the rearview mirror to look at Christian with worry when Ryan broke the silence and joked,
"Christian letting lose. I never thought I'd see that one day. Even less me picking you at a bar because you're too drunk. Maybe you should make sure that someone is with you when you want to drink that much, though."
"What's the point, anyway?" Christian mumbled loud enough for everyone in the car could hear him. Mia furrowed her brows a little, not liking how her theory was getting confirmed by the detached tone Christian used.
"I'm just saying, next time you want to get hammered, call me so I can limit you and you don't make a spectacle out of yourself like that," Ryan lightly said, though Mia could tell that he was growing concerned behind his facade of joking carelessness.
"There won't be a next time. There isn't any future. She just … stopped."
No one said a word, but Mia and Jose still exchanged a glance in the rearview mirror. So, what she had hoped not to be true was, in fact, the reason behind Christian's inebriation. The proposal did not go as Christian had expected it. A part of Mia briefly wondered if Jose had known about the ring as well, but most of her focus was on the fact that Christian must have really loved the girl to take her refusal so strongly.
Ryan glanced at the back, catching Mia's eye, just before Christian took a box out of his pocket, and played with the ring, mumbling to himself that everything was pointless. And out of nowhere, Mia felt a wave of anger against this girl she had never known.
She didn't know how the proposal went, but she was sure that if Christian reacted so badly to the refusal, it must be because it had been brutal. After all, Christian often was confronted with things not going his way in his line of work, and he always reacted well to those disappointments. And Mia couldn't help but resent the unknown girl because if the girl had had any sort of feeling, or even respect for Christian, she would have let him down gently.
Once in front of their building, Ryan helped Jose to take Christian in his apartment, and asks nonchalantly about the secret girlfriend, and though Jose pretended that he had no idea what was talking about, Mia could tell that he was had spent enough time with him to pinpoint the telltales of him covering up the truth, no matter how good he was at hiding them.
Ryan left them all in the living room, saying that he would pick up Suzie, and advising them to get a good cure for hangovers for Christian since it was probably his first time drinking. As soon as they were alone, Jose helps Christian back to his feet, and announced,
"I'll take him to his room."
"I'll help you."
"No! It's okay, I'll handle it," He precipitately said, making Mia roll her eyes and sliding herself on Christian's other side, not giving Jose a choice in the matter.
With difficulty, they made Christian climb up the stairs and dragged him to his room. He slumped in his bed with a grunt, apparently barely conscious that he was removing his shoes himself. And for a second, Mia was destabilised. She saw many frames where Ana was featured with Christian, brightly smiling at the camera whilst Christian was having a more restrained smile, though it was a smile that she had never seen on her friend.
She felt Jose's gaze on her, making her feel self-conscious for a second. She quickly averted her eyes from the frames, and went back downstairs, filling Bastille's bowl with water mostly to occupy her hands. After a few minutes, she heard Jose coming back downstairs, and she let him know,
"I'll stay here with him. You go back to Ethan before he freaks out finding the bed empty."
Jose did not say a word, nor moved. She could tell by his body language that he was probably looking for the right words to formulate what he wanted to say. But he didn't have to say a thing. She knew what he was about to say, and so she cut him off,
"I'm not a kid, Jose. I won't go gossiping around about what I saw upstairs. Christian is my friend as much as he is yours."
He gave her a small apologetic smile, which she brushed off by shaking her head, and after he left, she went back upstairs, thinking of what she had just learnt. She was pretty sure that Christian had had a girlfriend from the moment he came to help her. Which meant it had been more than a year that they have been together.
Before going to the bedroom, Mia swang by the bathroom and saw many feminine products, as well as a second toothbrush next to Christian's, another bathrobe and even a hairbrush with a few red hairs stuck in it. And as she went back to Christian's room, a tiny part of her felt a bit hurt that none of her friends deemed her trustworthy enough to share this secret with her.
It was obvious that Jose knew, and she was pretty sure that Kate knew as well. So, it left her, a friend to both parties and oblivious of their implication with one another.
Her eyes went back to the frames, analysing what she was seeing. It was a selfie taken by Ana, where she could see the Eiffel Tower behind them. If she was honest, Mia had never seen Ana smile like that. She was radiant, her free arm holding Christian's who wasn't really looking at the camera. In fact, Mia could easily imagine that Christian had been looking at Ana's reflection on the phone, rather than the camera when that picture had been taken.
She put back down the frame, repressing a shiver and swiftly looking away. She felt like she had just witnessed something intimate that she hadn't been supposed to see. She had never seen Christian break out of his self-imposed control, not even when he took her to examine the ring's design. Showing his feelings was probably something he reserved to Ana's eyes only, and yet, she broke his heart.
As she sat on the armchair by Christian's bed, she noticed a ginger cat next to the passed out man, who was staring at her unblinkingly. She assumed that Bastille must have felt his master's distressed, and judged it greater than hiding from her. While she kept looking at Bastille's blue eyes, she tried to understand why neither Christian or Ana ever came clean about their relationship.
And then she remembered. Ana was Raymond Steele's daughter. Christian's boss. A mafia kingpin. A man who often intervened in his daughter's love life according to Kate and Ethan. Was Raymond the reason why Ana broke up with Christian? Did he find out about them and forced his daughter to make a choice? Or did she refuse to come out of the closet because of her father?
In all honesty, Mia had thought at first that I had been Christian who didn't want to make things official. She thought that he simply followed the stereotype of men being afraid of commitment. But the more she thought about it, the less it made sense. Christian wasn't someone who liked to hide, no matter what he did. And Mia couldn't see why he would have bought a personalised ring if he wasn't willing to commit.
Christian made a small groan, tearing Mia out of her thoughts, and she took the blanket to cover him up. When she did so, he told her,
"She said no."
"I gathered," She gently said, wiping the sweat off his forehead with a piece of sheet.
"She didn't even let me show her the ring," He lamented, his voice breaking at the end. She swallowed hard, feeling bad for her friend and his heartbreak, but surprised at Ana.
"Christian … I don't know what to tell you. Did she give you a reason for you to work on?"
Christian darkly sniggered, keeping his eyes closed as his face turned to its usual cold demeanour, "It's simple, Mia. I wasn't her Prince Charming, no matter how strongly I felt for her. She might have been my one, but I wasn't hers. I wasn't enough for her."
.~°~. .~°~. .~°~.
Mia's PoV
The next morning, Mia was awakened by someone pulling a blanket over her. She promptly opened her eyes, only to see Christian with a quilt, trying to bring some warmth to her. She blinked a little, straightening in the armchair as she took her friend in. There was no trace of him having had the worst night of his life. He was in a suit (as usual), shaven and fresh out of the shower. She glanced at the clock on the bedside table and saw that it was barely seven.
"How are you?" She croaked, getting up and stretching.
Christian let down the blanket on his bed, as he let her know,
"I'm great."
The two of them silently battled, Christian daring Mia to mention that he could be anything but great. She hesitated but figured that the best way to help her friend was to have some long overdue girl talk with another friend of hers. So she simply shrugged it off and followed Christian to the kitchen, where she made him her own special remedy for hangovers.
Christian took the glass, thanking Mia, before he solely said, "About last night, Mia … Don't tell her anything. This was part of the agreement, no one was to know. And no matter what happened between us, I am a man of my word."
"Christian … maybe you should try and talk to her. I know Ana can be childish and stubborn, but —"
"But she doesn't want to deal with me when it involves commitment. I get it. I did talk, and she did refuse to listen. She made up her mind, and there is nothing more to add to that."
Though she did not say anything, Mia still noticed the way his jaw clenched when she said Ana's name, and she suddenly wondered if he was ever going to say her name again. Though she had never seen Christian hold the grudge, she was sure that he was someone who did not forget, not forgive. And she didn't want his feelings of love for Ana to turn into hate.
"I'm sure that if she really knew how you felt yesterday night, she would —"
"I'm asking you as a friend, Mia," Christian cut her off, his voice suddenly so cold that it sent chills down her spine. And for the first time, she could actually feel why people were so scared of her friend. It wasn't much that she feared for her life, on the contrary, Christian was the one person she knew she could depend on to stay alive. It was as if she heard a latent threat in the simple words he had for her.
And so, even though it was against her instincts, she promised not to talk to Ana. She was Christian's friend first, and if she had to choose, she would pick Christian, no matter how much she liked Ana. Christian meant more for her than Ana did.
"I won't say a word."
"Thank you."
.
.~°~. .~°~. .~°~.
‼️PLEASE DON'T BE A SILENT READER AND LEAVE A REVIEW
IT REALLY DOES HELP‼️
.~°~. .~°~. .~°~.
💚Your thoughts and opinions are always welcomed💚
💚So, I am going to emphasise on this, Christian NEVER DRUNK BEFORE THIS NIGHT. Several chapters ago, he did tell Ana why he never drank, which shows how much heartbroken he was, to go against what he had always been about, and try to drink his sorrow away. Congrats to all of those who guessed that Christian was going to find oblivion in alcohol. This is actually the reason why I made a point on saying several times that Christian did not drink.
~ Anyway, question time:
💚So how are you feeling about Christian and his way to cope?
💚 What do you think of Mia in this chapter?
💚 And what do you of Christian's last words in both parts?
💚 And what do you think will do next?
💚What was your favourite part?
Anyway, E L James owns the names of the characters from the Fifty Shades franchise, everything else is mine.
Love, Mina💚💚💚
