Chapter 90: Walking into Trouble
Evaline:
I didn’t remember leaving the ballroom.
I only remembered the heat in my chest, the stinging behind my eyes, and the noise of clinking glasses and laughter blurring behind me.
My barely made any sound on the glossy floor of the hotel lobby, then onto the pavement, and before I knew it... I was just gone.
I was gone from that hall, from the humiliation, from River’s smug voice painting me as something I wasn’t - an object to prove a point. A tool. A showpiece. The very thing I had vowed to never become again.
The air outside was cool and damp, tinged with the faint scent of the nearby river that was cutting through the city. I walked. Fast. Then faster. Turning corners, taking streets without looking at their names, ignoring the stares of passersby. I was still in that stupid blouse and trousers, clean and modest but plain. Cheap.
I kept walking and walking until the noise behind me faded, until the ache in my feet was too much to ignore, and until my breath was coming out in ragged bursts from both the cold and my emotions threatening to spill out.
When the fog of my rage began to lift, the panic crept in.
I was somewhere in the city - somewhere. But where exactly, I had no idea. Nothing was looking familiar. There were no signboards I recognized. No scent I could latch onto. The city lights were casting an artificial glow over everything, making even shadows look unreal.
I pulled out my phone, but the battery had already dipped into red. I could neither call nor message anyone, not like I had any idea whom to call and what to say.
Hey, I walked off in a fit of rage and now I’m stranded in a city I don’t know without a single coin to get back. Could someone please fetch this emotionally unstable rogue girl?