“What!?” I exclaimed. “Are you out of your mind? Why would I want that?” I said with a shrill voice while trying to tug my hand free from his hold. You would think that he of all people would know that I would rather eat shit than meet with that woman just to hear her talk shit. Why in the world would I go and meet her?

Mark sighed and rose from his seat with his hand still gripping my wrist, as the force of my tugging didn’t faze him at all. He pulled me gently towards him until I had to crane my head back to look him in the eyes. “I am saying this because you need this.”

“No, I don’t.” I disagreed with him.

He gave me a tender smile and used his hand to brush my bangs gently out of my face, as they were acting like shutters, obscuring my sight. “The one skill that every killer gains in their life is the skill to read the human body language. How they walk when they are nervous. How their eyes divert up to different directions when they are trying to come up with a lie. No slight gesture gets past us unnoticed and from what I could deduce from your body language, is that you need this conversation with your mom, kitten.”

My nose crinkled up in distaste. “Well, I think it’s time for you to put on your reading glasses, because you're way off.” I sneered at him; my words coated with derision.

Mark lowered himself until we were on the same eye-level, his hands resting on his knees for support as he hunched his back. The proximity between us contracted my airways as if he robbed the oxygen away from me and I had to swallow a lump of nervousness away. Mark’s eyes flitted momentarily to my lips, watching the movement before zeroing back on my eyes that were shivering. “You fear finding out the truth about whether your mom truly loves you, don’t you? No, that’s not it.” He shook his head and corrected himself. “What you are fearing more of is forgiving her and having to go through all of that again, because the truth is kitten, you will always love your mother no matter what. You are just acting strong.”

His words were like jabs to my stomach and knifes to my heart, carving out the pain that I had hidden away for years. My anger towards my mother was sincere and I am not sure if that will ever be snuffed out as she was the benefactor to my traumas, the reason I had to close off my heart, why seeing older men made the small hairs on my neck stand up. But at the same time, the memories that I had of my mother before the departure of my dad haunts me, making me hopeful for those days to return just to leave me with anguish as the clock of time will never be rewind back again. I can never truly hate my mother, but it scares me that my feelings may get easily swayed if I let her speak and that she will ones more pull me back in that darkness where I had to crawl out using all my strength until my nails turned bloody and brittle.

With my eyes cast down, balled my hands into a pair of fists to suppress the upcoming tears as I let out a low whisper that was akin to the quiet breeze of the wind that was filled with lament, “So what? Even if you’re right, why should I see her? To reopen my wounds?”

“Yes.” He deadpanned to have my brows knitted together and to have my watery eyes leveled until they met his. The corner of his mouth turned up a fraction of an inch. “You go see her to reopen those wounds of yours and have them healed permanently. Tell her your feelings about your story and go tie those loose ends. Whether or not you re-store your relationship doesn’t matter. Fairly, I don’t care if you will ever meet with her again after this. I prefer that anyway, but if talking things out with her will release you of your nightmares, then I will do everything in my power to make that happen.”

After his spoken words, the room got filled with silence. Neither of us exchanged a word. Our eyes locked on each other as he waited for my response. I closed my eyes and inhaled a gulp of air to release it right out again. The reluctance that I had before came out together with my shuddering breath. “Alright,” I opened my eyes again. Giving him a curt nod, I continued, “I will go meet with her, but I’ll hit you if anything goes wrong.” I said warningly.

Using both hands, he ruffled my hair while releasing husky chuckles. “Everything will be fine, trust me.”

Grumbling, I slapped his hands away and tried to smooth down my hair, strands that went errant, sticking out in different directions as if electric currents were running through them. A smile pithily washed over my face. He was right. It was time for me to put an end to all of this. It was time for me to stop running away from her and start walking towards her.

“And with that said, let’s go shopping.” Mark said, straightening his back up again.

Confusion took over my face-expression. “Shopping? Why?”

“To buy you some clothes, of course!” Mark said it like it was a matter-of-fact. “Show her how well you are living right now, especially after you had to show your bloodied, rigid appearance in front of her yesterday. I can’t have my woman looking like that, can I?”

At that, I rolled my eyes. “I am not your woman and what’s wrong with the clothes that I am wearing right now.” I said, using my hand to gesture towards my outfit that was attached to my body.

Mark lets his eyes glaze over my body up and down and said plainly. “You look like you’re going to work.”

“I thought that was the point. It’s a workday, remember?” I reminded him.

“And I am the Co-CEO remember?” He retorted back. He then crossed his arms in front of his puffed-up chest and announced, “And as your boss, I commend you to not work today and go shopping with me.” Using his haughty posture with arms still crossed pointed down at me with his index finger.

Mystified, I blurted out without thinking. “What are you? A child?” Which only earned a smug grin from Mark. Staring at him for a second, I exasperated as I shook my head; having the feeling that Mark won’t back down on this. “Fine, let me send Cher a quick message that I won’t be coming to work today- ah”

Talking while letting my hands roam over my body, patting myself down in a search of my phone to realize that I didn’t have it on me. I had no clue what happened to it after one of Casper’s lackeys drugged me. He most likely already got rid of it.

My arms went limp on my sides as I muttered petulantly with my head slumped down, “Great.” Only to have a phone appear in front of my face. Obtuse, I blinked at it before raising my head, looking at Mark, who was holding the phone.

“Here.” He said, and I took it. I turned the phone around in my hand to glaze over it. The phone was new and a different model compared to my old one. Unlocking the phone screen, I was met with a background picture which I used on my previous phone. Scrolling through it, I found pictures that I had taken over the years and all my chat history.

“How? When?” I questioned, flabbergasted only to close my mouth again as I wasn’t able to sort out my thoughts, my fingers still scrolling around to find even older data.

“I got Snake to get me a new one last minute and restoring your data was a piece of cake, as they were all stored on my laptop.” He grinned proudly, his eyes sparkling with expectance to hear a compliment from me, but I was slightly disturbed and could only avert my eyes from him as my brows puckered with worry, not knowing the extended information that he had about me on his laptop.

“Okay… thanks.” I drawled with a wobbly smile and proceeded to message Cher, telling her I wasn’t able to show up at work because of a severe hangover.

Few minutes later, as I stood at the front door, hunched over to wear my shoes, I received a message from Cher. Expecting her to reply to me back with ‘Skipping work without me? The audacity!’ or ‘We went hard on the drinks, didn’t we? Lol’ I was overcome with confusion by seeing a different message, which I haven’t seen before.

Her message was only filled with emojis. It went in an order of smirking face, eggplant and a cat emoji. Lines appeared between my eyes, trying to decode her weird message. What in the world was this? Maybe I should look at this from a different perspective?

I tilted my head at different angles, but I still wasn’t able to figure out her weird message.

“What are you doing acting so cute?” Mark stood behind me, looking at me with a confused smile. He then saw my phone that was unlocked and, with my back towards him, he sticks his head out over my shoulder to inspect.

“Hmm?” He hummed curiously before his eyes broaden in shock.

“Cher has replied to my message, but her message is weird. I don’t get it.” I said, hoping that he could use his decipher skills to unravel Cher's mysterious message. Hearing my voice, Mark snapped his head quickly to the side, his jaw slack as he stared at me with astonishment. “You don’t get it?” He asked in disbelieve.

I shook my head in silence but kept a weary eye on the man whose face slowly morphed from shock to mischievousness; the gap between his lips slowly closing again for his lips to be pulled into a wide smile.

“What does that eggplant resemble to?” He questioned.

“An eggplant?” I answered with a question. What else can it be?

He nodded in understanding and then points at the cat. “What about that?”

“A cat.” What is he trying to get at?

“Okay, but now a different word for cat.”

“A kitten?”

He chuckles lightly. “A different word.”

I thought profoundly, as no word came to mind. My eyebrows furrowed and my lips pursed, but then slowly relaxed when I finally figured out the word. “A pussycat.”

With a permanent smile on his face, Mark nodded. “Good, now omit cat from pussycat.” He instructed, and I did just that, my mouth slightly parted as I mindlessly uttered the word that he wanted me to say. “Pu…ssy.” Eloquent as I slowly uttered the word, realization dawned on me. My body froze in place and a flush crept across my cheeks as I flung my hands up to my mouth swiftly, covering it as I was burning with embarrassment.

At the sight of the outer shell of my ears heating, Mark’s grin widens, revealing his front row teeth as he inches his face closer to me. “It seems that you have finally caught up. You now understand what the eggplant means, right?” His eyes shifted to the phone, gesturing at it.

Feeling my body combust from the heat as I finally put two and two together, I rapidly typed on my phone, messaging Cher.

Me: “Why would you send me something like that!?”

Cher: “Because our April has finally done the deed! We have to celebrate it tomorrow. How was it, by the way?”

Me: “I don’t know, because nothing happened! How did you even reach to that absurd conclusion!?”

Cher: “Well rumors have submerged the building saying that after you went outside dragging my lifeless body that Mr. Moore went after you and that you both didn’t come back after that.” Cher replied referring to the time that Mark and I got abducted.

Me: “That means nothing. We could have both gone our separates ways and went home. Even better, who says that he went after me? He could have an important appointment.”

Cher: “Yeah, a very important appointment with April’s cheeks ;)”

Me: “Cher!”

Cher: “You can’t fool me, April. You both aren’t here and you, just now, send me a message that you can’t show up at work because of a ‘severe’ headache. You expect me to believe that when you didn’t even drink that much compared to me, who spilled her guts out. I’m the one who shouldn’t be at work!”

Me: “It’s really not what you think!”

Cher: “Uhu yeah… sure. I have to go to a meeting, so I will talk to you later. Bye! love ya! Have fun with your man!” I could hear her voice that was marred with sarcasm and disbelieve in my head. Not being able to let this slide, my fingers moved, typing the words that I wanted to tell her so that I could convince her that nothing had conspired that night.

“I am starting to like your friend.” Mark chipped in, his head poking over my shoulder as his blue eyes were taking in the messages that were exchanged between me and Cher. Hearing his jovial voice, my fingers halted, hovering above the digital keyboard as I snapped my head to the side, glowering at him.

“This is all your fault! Why did you have to follow me outside?” I barked.

His eyes narrowed slightly at me, not liking the vexed tone that I used for him. “It may have already slipped out of your mind, but I am your stalker. There’s no way that I would lose you out of my sight; especially when Casper was targeting you.”

“Well now everyone at work thinks that you have popped my cherry, but the only thing that was popped that night were the bones of Casper’s goons that you drove over!”

“Oh, so those weren’t speed bumps?” Mark wore a shocked expression, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth. His voice that came out overdramatic but was vacant of any emotions brought a displeased frown on to my face.

“Don’t be so uptight about it, Kitten.” Mark placed his hands on my waist and gently turned me around so that I would face him. “If your only worries are the hearsays spread around the building, then how about we turn those fibbed tales into reality?”

“No, thank you.” I quipped as I placed my hands against his chest to create some space between us, fearing that the red in my cheeks would deepen its color- giving this infuriating man a reveling feeling that he had some effect on me. “Instead, it would be wiser to head out now. You were the one who wanted to buy me clothes.”

After a minute of him wearing a pensive expression, he grinned as he said, “You’re right.” And then took his brown coat off the hook of the coat rack. Trusting one of his arms in the coat's sleeve, he used his other hand to place it against my back, propelling me with haste through the door as excitement coursed through his body.

“Why take you now when I can ravish you in the dressing room as I undress you.”

My head snapped so fast to the side that a cracking sound emitted from within my neck. I looked up at Mark with an alarmed expression.

He’s joking… right?