Love, Simply - Chapter 3：My friend, I will rescue

“It is painful to say goodbye to someone that you don’t want to let go,” Peter Cyrus’s best friend said, walking in the room. “But it is more painful to ask someone to stay if you know they want to go.”

“Enough with the quotes, Peter,” Cyrus groaned, “But who said this?”

“Anonymous.”

“Why are they always Anonymous? You’re making them up, aren’t you?”

“Not the point here. Come on, get up, “Peter said, pulling the covers off of his friend.

“Give me ten more minutes. I will get up,” Cyrus pleaded.

“I have learned not to compromise with you, amigo. It’s been two days. You got drunk and slept for two days. I am sure Mina is doing well and good. Look at you!” His friend was not looking like his old self, and Peter did not like it. After the breakup, Cyrus looked lost, haggard. He looked almost unrecognizable.

“I am hurting what do you want me to do?” He sniffed under the cover. Peter didn’t know what to tell him.

“You loved her—you probably still do. I know if she were to come back, you’d accept her. No questions ask. Let’s face it, friend, she moved on,” Peter said, pulling out his phone to show him her latest posts.

Mina looked great. She was smiling and laughing with her friends, something she seldom did around him.

“I know how much she meant to you, but —this was not the life she wanted. You respected her choice, and you let her go. I am not saying you need to move on from her yet, but you need to connect with us. I love you. Your siblings and Blake. We are there for you.”

“I know,” Cyrus said as he fell into his friend’s arms. “When will that pain go away? My chest feels heavy.”

“I don’t know man, cry all you want it’s better to let it all out. You are going to be fine.”

~~~

You are back and, you look alive. That’s great, that’s awesome, but we have a situation,” Peter said, pacing around the room.

“What kind of situation? Peter! What kind of situation? You are scaring me, okay.”

“Someone left with them,” he blurted out.

“Someone left with— What?” Cyrus paused. He couldn’t make sense of what Peter was saying. “Them? Who?”

“Tara, Tim, and Tyler.”

“You’re telling me this now? “You just let them take the kids?”

“The lady had bodyguards with her all right. What was I supposed to do? He defended. “She said something about a guardian—yes, something about an adoptive mother.”

“That’s not right,” Cyrus murmured.

“You were adopted? How come I didn’t know?”Peter asked. “What are you hiding from me?”

“After my parents died. My aunt has five children of her own. She put us up for adoption. There’s nothing to hide. I told you.”

“You have an aunt?” Peter asked. Unbelievable. “Well, how come she never came by?”

“She’s my dad’s older sister. I don’t know. We survived without her, didn’t we? That’s not the point, okay.”

“The point is.”

“This woman, she claimed to be dad’s friend. She adopted us, all four of us. I don’t think another family would have taken us all, especially with the twins’ condition.

“They refused to foster the twins and I. And the family who was going to adopt Tara was moving to Denmark.”

“That’s good. Denmark, huh? I don’t think you’d ever see your sister. She saved you,” Peter said. “Has she been keeping in touch?”

“She usually sent money by Aunt Grace. She moved to France. She paid for my school tuition. She stopped after I graduated. She even sent me a letter, saying she was not going to come back and that we weren’t going to hear from her anymore.”

“I don’t think she is a clean person. She might be running a dishonest organization. My guess, she wants you to run it to pay her back.” Dios! How did he come to that conclusion?

“She didn’t seem like the kind of person,” Cyrus said, rolling his eyes.

“How would you know? You only met this lady a few times before she left for France. Here, there is an address she told me to take you there,” he handed him a sticky note. Oh, how Cyrus wished he could have beaten that fellow. Just how did they become friends?

“Peter!”

~~~

Village Capoix—the houses looked elegant, pleasing to the eye, beautiful, the exterior design looked as if the houses covered in gold, not the kind of place they could afford to live.

“You know, there is a slight possibility that you are not entirely wrong,” Cyrus commented as they got closer to their destination. “How does someone like her live in a place like that? She didn’t look like she—”

She didn’t look like one of those elites. The kind of person who had it all?” Peter said, “Well, it looks like she is pretty elite…”

“You mean rich?” Cyrus asked. “Rich would have been enough to describe her, you know.”

“She may not have as much as Buffet, but she seems pretty loaded to me.”

“You are right about that.” Cyrus pointed to a house ahead.

“Maybe she is not what I said she was,” Peter said.

“She isn’t. You—and your imaginations.”

A security guard came out, signaling Cyrus to roll down his window. “Afternoon,” he smiled, “Do you have business here? Identification, please.” Cyrus still was unsure that the people who took his siblings was Mrs. Smith. “You haven’t told me your purpose of being here,” he reminded them as he took the ids. The security guard signaled him to wait as he verified their identity.

“I am Peter. Mrs. Smith knows why we are here. He’s the one she was waiting on,” Peter said.

“Sorry, sir,” The security guard apologized.

“It’s okay,” Cyrus assured.

“Thank you,” Peter said.

“You knew,” Cyrus said in disbelief. “Why didn’t you—what was all that for?”

“I am sorry. But, Had I said, ‘hey Cyrus, your adoptive mother is back. Well, she contacted me some time ago because the Aunt Grace you trusted so much had been lying to you and stealing your money.”

“Aunt Grace did?”

“Let me finish,” Peter said. “She was here the past two days, took care of you. She has the kids. You don’t’ have to worry.’ Would you have left the house to look for them? You’d still be in bed, crying your sorrows away. And yes, your Aunt Grace did.”

“God created you, especially for me,” Cyrus smiled.”Sometimes, I wonder how I ‘d have survived without.”

“Buried six feet underground. Leaving me a widowed husband.”

“You’re too much. Thanks.”

“You trust me too much.”

“You won’t wrong me.”

“Flatteries!”