Chapter 176: The Meeting Behind the Bars of Regret

I walked into the visitation room. There was only a concrete table with a thick glass partition separating us. Farah sat there, wearing an orange prison uniform that contrasted sharply with her pale skin. Her face, which had once always been adorned with expensive makeup, now looked haggard, with dark circles under her eyes.

When she looked up and saw me, her red, sunken eyes stared at me with hatred that was still burning.

"How dare you still show your face in front of me?" she hissed through the sound hole in the glass partition. "Are you satisfied now, seeing me rot in here?"

I slowly sat down on the cold iron chair.

"Look at me now. You won, didn’t you? You got Kevan, and I got these iron bars," she continued.

I looked at her calmly, even though my chest was pounding. "I didn’t come here to win, Farah. I just want to know one thing. Why did you have the heart to hurt my grandfather and grandmother? They were innocent."

"They were guilty for having you!" she shouted, making the guard in the corner of the room turn sharply. "I wanted you to feel the same loss that I felt. I wanted to destroy everything you loved. Because of you, I was expelled from school, and because of you too, I had no chance to have Kevan!"

"You were expelled from school because of your own mistakes, Farah." I clenched my fists, trying to hold back the anger that was rising. "Do you think that by hitting them, Kevan would look at you? Do you think violence would make him love you?"

"At least if you were destroyed, Kevan would have no reason to smile at you anymore!" she screamed until her face turned red. She stared at me sharply. "I hate you so much, Frel. I hate seeing how Kevan looks at you as if you are the only reason he breathes."

Suddenly, Farah let out a bitter laugh, tears beginning to fall down her slender cheeks. "For years, I waited for Kevan to break up with Putri. After they broke up, I thought it was time for me to get his attention. But since you came, he hasn’t even been interested in me."

I looked at her with deep pity, a feeling I never thought I would have for her.

"Farah, you destroyed your own life for a misguided jealousy."

"What do you mean?"

"I don’t know where to start," my voice was hoarse, breaking the silence. "But I need you to hear this, Farah."

I began to tell her. About the torturous days without my grandparents. About my body suddenly becoming paralyzed after they left me.

"The doctor said this is PTSD," I said, trying to hold back the tremble in my lips. "Every day I have to wrestle with the shadows of their deaths. I went through long therapy just to be able to breathe normally again."

I stared straight at her, trying to find a trace of conscience in her eyes. But all I found was a victorious gaze, as if her only goal was to hurt me.

The room felt more and more suffocating. I took a deep breath.

"There is one more thing you need to know, Farah. Something I only realized recently, and it makes everything even more complicated." I paused for a moment, looking at her, who remained silent as if she didn’t care. "I am Kevan’s younger sister. We share the same blood, even though we have different mothers."

Farah was instantly startled. Her eyes widened, as if her entire world had just exploded in front of her.

"What?" she whispered in disbelief. Her body stiffened. "Sister? You … you’re Kevan’s sister?"

She let out a bitter laugh, a painful-sounding laugh. "So all this time I was jealous of his own sister? Stupid, I’m really stupid!"

Seeing her reaction, my chest felt even tighter.

"I found out about that fact some time before I heard about the accident that took my grandparents’ lives."

Farah’s shoulders began to shake. The sobs she had been holding back finally broke free.

"Why, Farah?" I asked, my voice rising even though it trembled. "I’ll ask you once again, what did my grandparents ever do to you?"

She covered her face with her trembling hands. "I was jealous, Frel! I went crazy because Kevan chose you over me."

"If you were jealous because Kevan chose me, why didn’t you hurt me instead? Why did they have to become the victims of your hatred toward me? Was the price of their lives worth your satisfaction, huh?!"

My voice rose an octave. Even though I tried to hold back my anger, once I heard Farah’s reason for killing my grandparents, my emotions took over.

Farah wailed, her hoarse voice muffled by sobs. "I … I just wanted to teach you a lesson, Frel. I thought that if they were hurt, you would suffer and Kevan would turn to me. I didn’t mean to kill them. I was scared when I saw them not moving and—"

"A lesson?" I cut her off painfully. "Your ‘lesson’ killed my world, Farah. You call that love? To me, it’s nothing but a crime disguised as obsession."

"Kevan! Where is Kevan?!" she cried, calling his name over and over as if he were behind the walls. "Kevan, forgive me! I’m stupid! I thought love meant having someone no matter what. I wasn’t fair, Frel. I’m a coward!"

She tried to stand up, but her legs gave way and she fell to her knees on the dirty prison floor.

"Forgive me, Frel. Please, forgive me…," she muttered, beginning to wail. She crawled closer to the glass, her fingers scratching at the surface that separated us.

She began to bang her forehead against the iron frame supporting the glass, her sobs turning into a heartbreaking, hysterical wail. "Frel! Help me! I’m willing to kneel at your feet! Please tell Kevan I’m sorry!"

Farah’s screaming apologies filled the room. Her hands, dirty from the dusty floor, kept reaching for me, only to hit the glass in front of her. She looked like someone who had lost her sanity, shattered by the weight of regret she had just realized.

"Forgive me, Frel. Please, I beg you, don’t hate me. I regret it."

I stood there, silently staring at the heartbreaking sight.

"I don’t hate you, Farah," I whispered softly as my tears finally fell. "I just don’t understand. What does love really mean if it only ends up leaving wounds like this? How can something that is said to be beautiful instead invite evil into a person’s heart?"

I took a step back. My vision blurred with tears. "You destroyed my world for the sake of love, and that is the bitterest reality I have to face."

Farah buried her face, wailing in ruin. I turned away, leaving her in her belated remorse. I did not carry forgiveness with me, only the reluctance to watch her destroy herself because of her own actions.

Please heal, but not with me.

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