20 The Truth (6)

After Damon finished, silence ensured the room, as all of them were busy in their thoughts. When finally Leo let out a long sigh and told Damon.

"You are an idiot."

Damon who was just called an idiot by his younger brother could do nothing as he looked down at his feet because somewhere deep in his heart, he also admitted the fact that he was an idiot and a big one at that.

"An idiot for not confessing to Ivy... an idiot for taking a step back due to his own misunderstandings and an idiot for not tightly holding on to Ivy and not letting her go when she finally fell into your lap.''

Seeing that his brother had no wish to refuse him, Leo continued.

"That day when you saw me in the room I was actually practising in front of the mirror to tell Ivy about myself and the so-called feelings you just mentioned were that I had a kiddy crush on one of our classmates.

I was feeling suffocated by bottling up all my feelings and it was also not like I could tell anyone what was bothering me well.... not that anyone noticed.

For you see, I always had that perfect mask on my face and everyone was fooled by it... they all thought I was very happy and had no worries... even our own parents thought that, but it was only Ivy who was able to see through it.

She was able to see through the mask, which I had perfected throughout the years... ever since I came to understand and when I finally accepted the fact that I was different.

She knew that I was in pain, and she never asked me the reason for it, she just silently stood by my side and lent me her shoulder to cry on. In the end, it was I who thought that I should tell her the truth about my feelings.

This is also one of the reasons why both of us have such a deep friendship since the start and, after some time, Mia joined us and the three of us became a trio, you know like the three musketeers who were always there for each other.

They both always tried to help me with my feelings,

I could always just go and vent myself to them because they did not judge me, for them I was simply Leo, not Leo Wood, the second son of the prestigious Wood family.

But then it all went to hell.''

At this point of time, Leo took another deep breath as he, for the first time, was baring his heart to someone else than Ivy or Mia.

"It all started the day aunt Ava, Ivy's mother died, we were still in school when we received the news.

We were all shocked by the unexpected news and I don't even remember what I said or whether I did say anything to her.

We rushed to the mortuary, and you know what the worst thing was?

No one else from the Brown family was there. It was just us three.

You guys have no idea how much pain I felt when the staff asked for a family to come in and identify the body, and Ivy had to do it because no one else was there.

Not her father who had just lost his wife, nor her grandparents who had lost their daughter.

No one!"

Leo suddenly yelled as he remembered the scene and the blank look in his friend's eyes as she went into the room where the cold body of her mother laid.

"After coming out of the room out, she acted as all was well and went ahead to sit at one of the chairs present there, but before she could reach it, her legs gave out as she vomited out her lunch.

Three hours.... we waited three hours before the butler of the Brown family came to arrange for the funeral.

All the while, Ivy sat outside the room which contained the body of her dead mother for three fucking hours!!!!

Later her aunt did come, as she tried to soothe Ivy and told her that it was alright and all that shit but me and Mia both knew that she was putting up an act.

All this while Ivy sat like a doll on the chair,

And the scene you were talking about was right brother,

I was hugging Ivy as she cried but what you failed to notice that day at the graveyard was that there was no one else there, it was just me and Mia with Ivy.

Cause her own father did not come there to cremate his dead wife.

Ivy broke down the second the casket was being lowered as she cried her heart out.

After that, she quietly composed herself as she asked both me and Mia to leave, saying that she wanted to spend some time alone with her mother.

And that was the last time I saw her.

She just disappeared after that and no matter how hard we tried, we were not able to find her.

I looked for her for three months, after which I was forced by our parents to give up.''