The Grand Mistress

After school, Simione decided to head home immediately as she was extremely tired.It was past nine in the evening as her classes usually ended that time. Since she was working full time, she enrolled in night classes and usually after class, even when it's already late, she would drop by in a coffee shop to study for three to fours hours before heading home. However tonight was an exemption as she was terribly exhausted specially that she had dropped by in prison to visit grandfather Williams.

When she reached Lucy's apartment, she was welcomed by no one and Simione found it odd. Usually Gabriella was always there to welcome them as that runway maiden had never left Lucy's apartment ever. Yep. runaway. Simione usually calls Gabriella the runaway maiden because Gabriella ran away from home. 

Gabriella Monteria, her friend that looked like an angel, was one of the heiresses of House of Monteria, a famous fashion house. Their family owned several clothing companies that were scattered all throughout the country and their clothing lines do sell and have a steady market. 

For Simione, Garbriella was the epitome of perfectness. She was from a good family, she was beautiful, smart, sophisticated and most of all upright. She had a good character, a modest one, that separates her entirely from the liberated Lucy the Lucifer and apart from the three of them, she was the most responsible. In fact, amongst the three of them—the tres marias—she was the one who acted as their older sister when in reality Lucy was the eldest technically. 

Gabriella was the perfect woman every man of good reputation would want off and yet it didn't exempt her from all the troubles brought by men because unexpectedly and in the most scandalous way, Gabriella was cheated. Cheated by her boyfriend of ten years. They had been engaged for three years already  and were supposed to be married this year and God Lord! Thankfully before that happened, she had found his misdeeds.

As a result, Gabriella ran away from home and never left Lucy's apartment ever since. She however told her family she was in good condition but didn't tell her where she was because right then she was still fending off her broken heart.

A sound of broken glass brought Simione's thought back to reality and realized that the sound came from Gabriella's room. Lucy's penthouse was big with four big rooms on the second floor so each of them had their own rooms. 

"Gabie?"Simione called and climbed upstairs to check what the commotion was all about. When she reached Gabriella's room, she knocked but was not answered. Simione grimaced and wondered where Gabriella was, did she perhaps went out? She planned to give Lucy a ring wondering if the former texted anything about leaving the penthouse.

As Simione was dialing Lucy's number, she heard some sobbs inside Gabriella's room and knowing that something was wrong, she knocked again. "Gabie, are you okay?"

The sobbs stopped for a moment but Simione was already alarmed. She turned and pressed the door knob but it was locked, however she remembered that Lucy had some spare keys somewhere so she went and  looked for it. When she finally found it, she opened Gabriella's room and was welcomed by a dark messy chaos.

The room was all dark and through the small light that managed to peek into what seemed to be an endless hollow, she could see that broken glasses scattered everywhere.She looked further and found a woman slumping at the corner of the bed, hugging herself tightly as if she was cold.

"Oh Gabie.." Simione instantly felt a thorough pity at her once spirited friend. She had never seen Gabriella in this state ever before provided the fact that they had been friends throughout college. The Gabriella she knew she was always smiling, always alive and always positive but right now, not even a trace of her once beautiful character could be seen.

Simione walked toward her friend, very careful not to step into any broken glass and hurt herself. Good thing she was wearing a sturdy high heeled shoe she borrowed from Lucy's closet and so she was confident not a single sharp piece of broken glass could wound her foot. She sat beside Gabriella and hugged the girl, hoping her warmth was enough to give her comfort. She also ran a hand through thick dark long hair and shushed her not to cry anymore.

"Sisi," Gabriella called her name in between her slow sobbs. "What is wrong with me? Why did Erwan have to….cheat…"

Erwan Zhao was the boyfriend Gabriella settled with for the last ten years of her life without knowing the man was actually a jerk. Everyone once envied the couple, including Simione and Lucy because they were so perfect for each other as if it was a match made by heaven. Gabrilla's beauty was very angelic and Erwan's too, so it looked like their relationship had no faults at all. And yet, ten years later, here they all are, watching the once heavenly thought relationship turning into hell.

"It wasn't because of you Gabie. It was because he was a fool," Simione hugged her friend, tighter than she did before.  She could feel her weak heartbeat and her sobs struck Simione's ears like a painful piercing. She didn' like it, she didn't like how Erwan turned her friend into an insecure maiden without redemption. If Lucy would know this, for sure Erwan will become their next project and Sisi would be willing to crush him more than she will crush Feather. Damn that asshole!

"Don't tell Lucy please," Gabriella begged. Truth was she did not expect Simione to come early and so she had never prepared for her presence. Just then, her depression struck and as she wanted to control it, she smashed the vases in her room to get a hold of herself. "I don't want to make this big,"

"Alright," Simione agreed. Lucy was always overprotective and she treated them like her own sisters. One time in college she almost strangled to death their classmate who dared to say bad things to Simione. Lucy was suspended in school for that and that was what Gabriella was wanting to avoid. If Lucy makes desperate measures for Gabriella, she is afraid it will cause a big ruckus in the elite circle as they were both elites. That was also the reason why until then, the infidelity of Erwan didn't make it to the news because Gabriella shut her mouth about it, and so did her family. 

"Did something happen that I don't know about?" Simone asked. Her friend was a strong person and knowing her fully, she suspected her breakdown today was something caused by more than a break up.

"I actually ran away from home, thinking Erwan would realize his mistake," Gabriella confessed. "I thought he would look for me and so all this time I was waiting for him to realize I was here and that he would come...that he would kneel on his feet...with flowers and many things...asked for my forgiveness….and that we could get back together again…."

Simione closed her eyes thinking how painful their break up was for Gabriella. She remembered the time she and Lyndon broke up too. It was all sh*t that she doesn't want to linger on it any longer.

"Who knows what will happen," Simione was positive. Although she was cursing Ewarn at this very moment she couldn't deny the fact that he had treasured and treated Gabriella well previously. If not then she and Lucy would have not envied the two. She thought it would be such a waste if such a beautiful couple like Gabriella and Erwan would really end things right here. "As far as I could remember, Erwan does love you so it's not foolish for you to think he might come here and beg for your forgiveness. It's not yet too late for you guys to be honest,"

"I'm afraid that's not going to happen anymore Sisi," Gabriella's couldn't almost say the words, "He already decided to marry his woman and only now did I realize, it was my very own sister whom he cheated me with,"

"What?" Simione's eyes went big. She remembered Gabriella had four sisters and so much as she was surprised with this news, she was also confused which sister was she referring to. "Which sister?"

"Angelisa," Gabriella revealed. The night she found out Erwan was cheating, his bed partner fled from the scene outright so she never got to see who the girl was. She was blind all these days that it was Angelisa, her very own sister was the one who climbed into her fiance's bed. "And he got pregnant. Turned out it wasn't just a one night stand. They had been seeing each other for a while because Angelisa was now three months pregnant,"

The revelation got Simione blank for a moment and all she could do was cuss. She looked at Gabriella with thorough incredulity because in her life never  did she ever imagined that a woman with a Monteria blood would ever do such an outrageous thing. Everyone in the country knew who well mannered all the Monteria's were so this scandal would surely ruin their good long standing reputation. 

"F*ck!" That's all what Simione managed to say.