Chapter 63

**Kapittel 63**

**"Hey, Drew,"** Allison heard her best friend, Brent, call out to her with a groggy voice.

She huffed a breath in annoyance before turning her head and glared daggers at him with her tired and heavy eyes. She was busy reading about measurements of fabrics and essentials of pattern making when he called her out. She hated being disturbed when studying, and she knew that he knew that.

"What?" she asked him and raised a brow.

"I'm parched," he told her lazily that rendered her to make a face.

"So?" she asked before brushing her eyes from his face down to the thick book he was holding. They'd been studying for almost three hours, but he still hadn't read half of it. He was busy with his phone, scrolling through social media to find the latest tea, especially from the celebrities he hated while chatting with Rebecca, who had online classes. He did go through a few pages in the book, but he would immediately go back scrolling when he received a notification.

"Buy me a fruit shake, please?" he asked and made a cute face. She looked around, finding any signs of other people's presence in the library before answering him, "You know that eating food in the library is strictly prohibited, Dawson."

He raised a hand and pointed a direction with his thumb/ "Oh really? I can see Mrs. Bautista along with her assistant, Ms. Alberts drinking coffee and eating a croissant in her office."

She raised a brow before looking at the direction he was pointing at and realized he was right. Mrs. Bautista, the librarian, was eating snacks along with the assistant librarian, Ms. Alberts. She glanced at him and saw that he was grinning at her playfully. She only shook her head and continued reading her book, "Go and buy one for yourself."

"But Drew! I'm still not done solving the problems yet!" he pouted and whined like a child.

'He's going to be a father soon, but he's still acting like a child,' she thought in disbelief before giving her attention back to the book she was reading. She needed to study for the design she was going to submit for the semi-finals. This was her last year in this undergraduate program, and she needed to do her best to become the Summa Cum Laude and get that most-desired internship in Paris.

Allison knew that it was a horribly bad idea to study in the University's library along with Brent, but she still accompanied him because he begged her to it. They could have studied at home, but he wanted to study in the library because he hated disturbing Rebecca, who was busy with her classes. That woman needed silence during lectures, and he tended to be a real handful, especially if he was frustrated with specific topics. It worried him that he might stress her out.

"Drew, please?" he pleaded once again with his oh-so-famous puppy eyes that made her roll her eyes, give off a sigh, and go on her feet. She was the type of person who couldn't resist favors, especially when it came to her best friend. "Fine. The usual?"

He grinned happily before nodding. "Yup. I'll pay you later when we get home."

"Don't bother," she declined and fished her wallet from her pocket, checking if she still had enough money.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," she told him before striding off, leaving him in the library.

As soon as she stepped her feet out from the University, she sniffed, caught a whiff of the breathtaking scent of the wonderful season of spring. She unconsciously sighed in relief. Last year's winter was one of the coldest winters she'd ever experienced. Good thing the wicked gelidness was later replaced by the relaxing breeze and beautiful blooming flowers and trees. She turned her head from left to right before beginning her journey to the mall.

Two months had passed ever since she received a phone call from Hades. It had been four months ever since she last encountered the man who brought her to a painful circumstance by lying out of desperation. Allison lived her normal life again. She was now living freely. Her life was now free from pain, hatred, and pressure.

Out of the blue, her lips creeped into a small, joyous smile when a memory flashed before her mind. The memory of what happened last Christmas, her parents came for a visit in their apartment and celebrated Christmas along with her, Brent, and Rebecca. She could not believe that it had happened. It was her first time celebrating Christmas along with her parents. She had been dreaming of celebrating it along with them all her life, and after waiting for so long, it had finally come true.

Irina and Jonathan confronted their beloved daughter, saying that they had discovered what had happened. The couple cried and apologized for the mistakes they'd made to their unica hija, especially the time when they forced her to marry Hades for the sake of their family's name and promised that they would make up to her. That Christmas may be filled with tears and sorrow, but for her, it was her most joyful Christmas, and she would treasure it until her last breath.

She halted her steps when she felt the hairs on her rear and nape stand all of a sudden. She felt it again. The odd creepy-crawly feeling on her nape. The feeling of being followed. Fear began creeping in her system once again. Even though she was walking along with a lot of people, she could still feel her follower's viscous, heated gaze at her. For an unknown reason, she felt that she was being followed in the past two months. It started when she went out to buy some groceries for Christmas Eve. She thought that it was only her imagination, but then she realized she was being followed. She even caught sight of her follower's huge figure once. She couldn't call her anonymous follower a stalker, though, since a stalker gave his victims gifts or threats or even stolen shots of the victim, and her follower gave her none of them. She already tried to lure her follower once, but she only found herself lost and trapped. Good thing, a bodyguard came and found her.

She took a deep sigh before proceeding to walk her way to the mall, trying to distract her mind from forgetting her follower.