CHAPTER 33
SIERRA
It had been fourteen days since I broke up with Matty.
Fourteen days of endless agony.
Like I was breathing air to live, yet I felt so cold and dead at the same time.
I just couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Was he walking around the block to get his coffee? Did he miss the green apple muffins I made him? Did he work out extra hard in the gym?
Was he okay?
Did he miss me? That was the main painful thought of them all.
Because I missed him so fucking much.
Every second of every day, he was the only thought in my mind. And that look in his eyes kept clawing at my heart over and over again. And ever since that day, I hadn’t slept for more than a couple of hours.
My only companions were a splitting headache, tired eyes, and a weak body.
When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t recognize the person I had become. In just two short weeks, I had lost a lot of weight, there were constant dark circles under my eyes, and my hair fell like crazy from all the thinking.
I was a shell of a person who was once living.
Barely existing.
“Sierra, have you heard back from any of the colleges?” Mother turned her questioning to me.
We were all huddled up in the dining room for what was probably my least favorite part of the day.
The Chan family dinner.
And my mother’s insistent interrogations.
“No,” I said in a less-than-enthusiastic tone.
“Is something wrong? You look sick, sweetie,” Mom’s tone softened, like they did whenever we got sick. But was it even worth caring only when we were sick? What about the other times?
“I’m fine,” I replied, pushing my noodles around the plate. I had no idea why she suddenly cared when I’d been exactly like this for the past fourteen days.
“Yes, kiddo. You do seem down,” Dad added with a frown. Somewhere in this past week, the softness that my Dad usually had in his eyes for me returned. But only now, I didn’t have the strength to care.
“I’m not,” I mumbled.
“Okay, if you say so,” Dad said softly, attempting a smile.
And the sound of forks hitting the plates ensued once again, followed by my mother’s questions.
“Sierra, have you looked through all the materials I gave you?”
“No.”
I heard a sigh leave her lips while I kept forking and unforking my noodles.
“Look, Sierra. I know you had your break, but it’s time to get serious. That’s the only way you can get into an Ivy League because just with your high school grades, you’ll get nowhere.”
I nodded.
“Also, Tin keeps calling me. I have told him multiple times that you won’t be returning to New York, and he had the audacity to say how stupid I was being. I just don’t understand how you could have surrounded yourself with such uncultured people, Sierra. But thank God, they are out of your life now,” Mom admonished like she couldn’t believe people like those exist.
A beat passed, and I kept staring at that one white spot on the pristine, dark wooden table.
“Tin is not uncultured,” I said in a voice I didn’t recognize. “He is my best friend.” It didn’t matter if I ignored them or didn’t speak to them for the rest of my life; I wasn’t ever going to let anyone talk about my friends like that.
I could feel Mom frowning at me. “Fine,” she muttered but didn’t add anything else.
And once again, the clash of the forks returned.
But my mother didn’t stop.
“I don’t understand what’s so important about your gaming that people keep calling me about it and advocating for you every single day,” Mom said with a shake of her head while she sipped on her water. “It’s just a silly hobby.”
It didn’t even hurt anymore.
“Stop,” A low voice said from beside me, and my confused eyes flew to Raphy staring at the table, gritting his teeth hard. “Stop,” he said, sharper and louder.
“Stop what, Raphael?” Mom asked, her brows furrowed.
“Stop what you’re doing.” His eyes locked straight on my mother. “Stop trying to make my sister be someone she’s not. Stop trying to force your lost dreams on her. Stop belittling her dreams. Just stop everything,” he shouted, his fists curling on the table.
My eyes burned, and something hard lodged in my throat.
“Raphael,” Mom snapped. “How dare you speak to your mother this way? I’m only doing what’s best for your sister.”
“Are you really?” he asked in an empty laugh. “Look at her,” he bit out. “Look at my sister. I don’t even recognize her anymore. She’s not sick. She’s sick of you both. My sister…” His voice softened as he slid his gaze to me. “She shines bright. Do you know how happy she was back in New York? Matty gave her the freedom to be herself, to be her in just a few short weeks when you failed for nineteen years. Just let Sierra be. That silly game you keep talking about? It’s not as silly as killing your daughter because you think you know what’s right for her. That silly game has millions of fucking fans, and my sister ranks sixth in the world. She’s the youngest person in the world to rank that high, and she’s the youngest team leader in the entire league. Do you know the thousands of followers she has, people who actually appreciate and love her? Do you know how brilliant and smart she is? How could you ever know when you can’t even see her? When you can’t even see what truly makes her come alive? Hell, she even joined the tournament so she could prove to you she could do this. So tell me Mom, Dad, are you both happy for killing your daughter while she’s still alive?”
Mom had her hand clutched to her chest, and Dad looked red-faced as his panicked eyes met mine.
“Raph…Raphael what are you talking about?” Mom stammered, her eyes wide.
It dawned right then and there that I could not do this anymore. I cannot sit here and ruin my life just because my parents could never accept me for me.
“He’s right,” I said quietly, clearing my throat as I met them head-on. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t sit here and pretend that I want to go to college and study something I don’t even like. I didn’t ask for your support, I didn’t ask for you to accept me, I didn’t ask for you both to be proud of me, I just wanted you both to acknowledge who I am,” I said softly. “To love the parts of me that aren’t societally acceptable or the parts you don’t agree to be normal. To just love me for me. Your weird, loud daughter, who loves to game and is mediocre at school and bad at sports. I just wanted you both to acknowledge that girl, the real Sierra. As much as it hurts for you both to understand, you don’t really know the real me. You just know the girl who walks on eggshells, overanalyzing her every step because she doesn’t want her parents to know the real her. Because the real her is not perfect, and she knows that version of her will only disappoint her parents. And she was right, they are disappointed in her . They are disappointed because she just chose to be her. But I can’t do this anymore. I can’t pretend to be someone I’m not. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’d like to figure that out myself. On my own.”
Mom was openly crying, and Dad looked distraught like someone had killed his favorite pet.
But for the first time in my life, I didn’t let it faze me as I rose to my feet.
“Kiddo…” Dad started, his voice cracking, but I just shook my head and walked out of there.
And I felt free.
“I finally did it,” I said later that night to a motionless Matty staring at me from my closet door. “I said everything I had wanted to say to my parents. If…If you were here would you be proud of me?”
Those soulless green eyes just kept looking at me. Not saying a word.
Not like I expected it to.
After I said my piece, I’d been holed up inside my bedroom. Mom and Dad tried multiple times to talk to me, but I didn’t have the heart or the energy for that. They’d had their chance to talk for many days, so many times when I begged them to listen, but now I felt it was too late.
So I had been staring holes at my bedroom ceiling for the past couple of hours, just feeling so empty.
I missed him.
The more I kept looking at his posters, the more he felt like someone else.
Someone distant.
Like a lifeless version of him.
Like a picture of a man I’d idolized for years.
Not the man I came to know.
I thumbed through my phone till I found the real picture of him, and I couldn’t help the small smile that curved my lips.
My first smile in two whole weeks.
The memory of that picture came flooding back to me. I was trying to be annoying like a paparazzi to sneak dozens of pictures of him because I knew how much he hated cameras in his face but my Matty didn’t complain. Instead, his lips twitched into a small smile, his eyes shining with adoration as he let me have my way with him.
A heavy pang sliced my heart.
And tears clouded my vision.
I had ruined us, hadn’t I?
I ruined the one good thing in my life.
The one man who saw me for me, saw all versions of me with nothing but fondness, studying me like I was his favorite piece of art and being my grumpy shadow.
Everything he did was for me.
Every thought he had, included me.
Every second of his day, he devoted to me.
It was then I realized that this Matty Evans , staring back at me from my phone, was the one who had my heart, not some modelized picture of him plastered on the wall.
It was this man who held me tight at night, it was this man who wiped my tears, and it was this man who showed me the version of himself he had never shown anyone.
It was the real Matty Evans I loved.
But it didn’t matter anymore, did it?
I had broken his heart before it could even be mine.
At that instant, something from that day flooded my mind.
“You just wanted me because of the way I look? Because I’m just some celebrity you are obsessed with?”
The more I stared at his picture, the more of what he said started to make sense to me.
And then it dawned on my stupid brain.
I didn’t understand him then, but I did now.
Was that what he thought?
Was that what he was thinking right now? That I left him because I didn’t like the real version of him?
In a way, I’d done exactly what my parents had done to me.
I’d been on the receiving end of those painful blows, so I knew how much it hurt.
Was he hurting all this time, and I had done nothing about it?
A loud gasp left my lips, and my phone slipped from my hand and landed on the floor with a thud.
And so did my heart.
I leaped to my feet and dashed to my brother’s room without a second thought. The only other boy in my life who accepted me for me.
“Si, what’s….” Raphy’s eyes glinted with concern.
“Take me to him ,” I cut in frantically. “I want to see him now, please.”
His gaze softened, and he didn’t even ask who before he nodded.
It was the middle of the fucking night, but I didn’t care.
I wanted to see him now.
I couldn’t bear to think he was hurting right this second, and I wasn’t doing anything about it.
Thankfully, my brother was a better driver than me, and he didn’t even give it another thought before he stole Dad’s keys and drove me to him.
We made it to his building in record time, thanks to the empty roads. The entire way, I was a bundle of anxious nerves just thinking about him.
“Thanks, Raphy,” I said, turning to my brother as he parked at the curb.
Raphy gave me one of his signature cocky grins as he pulled me into a hug. And I went crashing into my brother, marveling at his strength at such a young age.
Today wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for him sticking by my side.
“Go on now, go live the life that you’re always meant to live, Si. I’ll see you on the other side.”
“I love you so, so much, Raphy,” I muttered, smiling as I kissed his cheek before diving out.
I prayed the codes were still the same as I crossed the reception and ran to the elevator, and thankfully, it was.
I rushed to his doorstep, pausing right outside his door. I knew the code, but I didn’t want to barge in unannounced. Especially since I wasn’t with him anymore.
I pressed the doorbell, but there was no answer.
He was probably sleeping, and I didn’t even bring my phone since I left in a hurry.
I pressed it again and again till I heard the thunder of footsteps approaching me, the same sound that matched the beat of my heart.
The door dashed open, and my breath hitched at the sight of him.
Shirtless in just his black sweatpants.
Those green eyes blinked at me, tired lines surrounding them.
And everything in me ached.
“Sierra?”
“I choose you,” I blurted, wringing my fingers. “I don’t choose my parents, I don’t choose my game, nor do I choose myself. I choose you , Matty Evans, because you’re the only man who wanted me for me without wanting anything back. And I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry for breaking up with you like that. I didn’t know what I was thinking. I thought I didn’t fit in your life, but the life I was thinking, was the life you showed the world, not the life you lived with me. Your real life. I think it’s the only place I would fit perfectly.” My lips wobbled.
“I like the way I look in your eyes, Matty Evans, and I’ve never felt more beautiful. I love you with all that I am. I love you, the real you. The man standing in front of me, not the man staring at me from the posters on the wall. But then I love every version of you.”
He blinked.
“I know it’s probably too late now. I don’t know if I still have a chance with you. But I don’t want anything else. I’m sorry for everything that I did. There is nothing I want. Please, just I hope…”
“Sierra,” Matty’s voice boomed to my soul. “Shut the fuck up,” he muttered, and in the next second, he swooped me into his arms and pressed his lips to mine.
And there was no place I’d rather be in the whole entire world.