Chapter 16: Practicing Self-Love

Athena’s P.O.V.

I went straight to the library. I wanted to be alone and enjoy my ‘me’ time completely. That was the reason why I was in the garden because it was tranquil and relaxing to stay there, but little did I know that some disgusting people would treat the place like a motel!

Pretending to look out for books across different shelves, thoughts kept on running around my head and that made me blankly stare at something.

Why is there a lot of people who used to be blinded and miserable just because of that stupid love?

Like my Dad—he had been blinded by his love for Helena to the point that he still wanted her to live like forever… as if there was actually forever? For me, forever doesn’t even exist. It already ceased even before it exists.

Even for once, even for a little bit, did my father… ever try to love me?

And that Rivera—what I knew so far about him was that he was an intelligent student. A smart one… and there was no question to that. But for Christ’s sake! In terms of love, he was nothing but a fool! We always had choices in life and he undoubtedly chose to be… imprudent!

He didn’t even know that his girlfriend already had another boyfriend? And it was even earlier than him so he was, unfortunately, the third party. And what did that Vanessa do to him? She treated him like a piece of crap… a rug… a slave!

Too frustrating for a smart guy, tsk!

That was the reason why I would never, ever, succumb to that stupid thing called love. Being alone would have been much better. For me, it was more than exciting and fun. You would get to know more about yourself and definitely, you had more time to love yourself. After all, it was indeed better to be alone than being with the wrong person.

After looking around for any psychological books, nothing had piqued my interest so I just sat at the corner of the library.

I wanted to become a Psychologist someday. I wanted to study each and everyone’s personality. I wanted to master how a person thinks and behaves. I wanted to understand why some people had this so-called dissociative or multiple personality disorder—how did they get that aside from their tormented past, what would trigger that and what would be the cure for that.

I set aside my thoughts. I unzipped my bag and searched for my tablet, then I opened my Famebook account. Last year, I made new ‘Helena Mari Delgado’ social media accounts—Famebook, Tweeter, and Chinstagram. Although my twin and I were truly close to each other, we respected each other’s privacy so I didn’t know her passwords and it was simply, vice versa.

And certainly, I could no longer open and use my real accounts because I already died as Athena. Too sad! It would only cause an online craze and people would assume that I was haunting over the social media. But I just realized, it could be so much fun! Hmm, should I try it once?

Using the new Helena’s account, I searched for my old Famebook and read the posts from my real timeline. All public posts came from my original schoolmates and I just couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

Oh, come on, people! It has been a year and yet, your recent posts still consist of ‘rest in peace’ messages? Can’t you just move on? You, guys, only pretend that you were concerned about me when you were really not. Plastics!

Aside from Helena, I had no other friends. Dad had decided to separate us in school because people would only be confused to think who was who. And what would I even expect for a father who already had a favored daughter? He would sometimes cut his work just to personally fetch Helena after class… and what about me? I had no other choice but to wait for Ricardo to pick me up from school.

Well, Daddy didn’t care at all if I went home past curfew hours. Of course, for him, I did not exist. But even though they had already finished dinner, Helena would still join me at the long table because she does not want to make me feel alone. My twin was truly affectionate and caring, why would she have to die of all people?

So in my school, I doubted if they ever knew that I had a twin sister. I chose not to talk to anyone, except teachers. Most of the time, I preferred to be alone.

Oh, let me rephrase that—I always wanted to be alone. At least, alone but not lonely. I loved just being with myself and that was ‘self-love’ as they say.