Lumienda's Jewels

The pendant of eternal love | Part two

Translation from Greek to English: georgiaath
Illustration: Stolis Pleiadian

My breathing is fast and sharp. The pain in my stomach isn’t stopping. I am now losing two people I love dearly because of my ego. I never liked to lose and always chased victory in any way; and usually I would choose the illegal way. But now I can’t win, it’s not up to me anyway…

I rest my right hand on the shoulder of the bloodied Luther who lies in the ambulance that is taking us to the hospital and my left hand on my slightly swollen belly. I want to cry, but I don’t have the courage even for that. They ask me how it all happened and with as much courage as I have left, I begin to explain how we came this far.

Almost a year ago

I wake up from a hot dream in every sense of the word. Luther next to me is the only one who can calm me down. Lately that I have been wearing the pendant, we can’t take our hands off each other. I pat him lightly on his chest to wake him up. I kiss his lips softly and he slowly opens his eyes. His copper hair, the freckles on his face as well as his green piercing eyes excite me. I lay in his arms and leave myself in his hands.

Love shines in the eyes of us both. Our love can be seen from miles away, and I have not regretted that night I stole the locket from Lumienda. I wear it non-stop. It makes me feel beautiful, strong, confident about myself, and this also comes out in my group of friends.

Luther’s “other” relationship disappeared from his cell phone and of course also from his heart. Every night he makes me feel special and his forever. Which is exactly what I wanted anyway…

Time passes by, until a few months later we have our first fight. The cause? My eyes fell on someone else while Luther and I were out for a walk together. Small harm, it was not the end of the world; after all, I am with him. But no… Luther was furious that I looked at someone else. Dare I say my ego was boosted by his jealousy, and the same night we really blew each other’s mind, with Luther being more intense than usual. In the end we forgot all about the event and life went on.

Sometime later, two similar outbursts of jealousy happened, which disturbed me. It is certain that I am a beautiful, 25 year old girl. I am charming and desirable, and at any time and moment I could actually leave Luther, and find someone else, which as it turns out he already knows himself. That’s why he’s scared. Fear is a dishonorable thing and it is treacherous; it appears suddenly and makes you freeze. It leaves you feeling empty and full of insecurities.

“My love, I can’t not go out with Voula today… I have promised her that we will meet!”
“I don’t care…you’ll stay here!”
“Luther, you cannot force me to stay here. Do you see how unreasonable this is?”

He lowers his head, as if he understands and in the end, I go out for a drink with Voula, my oldest friend. I had a good time, and truth be said, I also caught a few looks and smiles from the bartender who kept serving us shots.

I come home completely waster hours later, and Luther is waiting in the living room with the TV on.

“You’re late…”, he tells me sharply.
“Yes indeed…”
“And you’ve had too much to drink…”, he continues.
“Yes, we had a lot to talk about”, I answer him.
Luther rests his head on his two palms and begins to cries. I approach him and hug him.

“Don’t leave me…”, he tells me sobbing. For the first time in the history of our relationship I feel how weak he is for me. But I wonder if this weakness of his is due to the pendant.
“I won’t leave you…” I answer, even though I had the intent of doing so a few hours earlier. While the bartender and I were exploring each other through kisses, caresses and love, different from that of Luther. Softer, purer I would say and with greater intimacy even if we only knew each other for a couple of hours.

I shut myself in the shower, to get the smoke and alcohol out of my body. I look at the locket. It has the crack it had when I first wore it, but now it’s deeper and bigger. I feel it warmer than usual, but who cares? It has brought me a lot of positive things all this time that I have it on me.

The shame of my actions does not affect me. Kostas, the bartender, and I kept seeing each other and at the same time Luther started to realize the void I created between us. I would not give myself to him at nights, I spoke to him abruptly, and to be honest I was planning on exiting from this relationship. Until I found out about my pregnancy.

My period was very late, but I hadn’t thought about it, since we were taking all necessary precautions. A slight swelling and a word from Voula with whom I went out to get coffee one morning.

“Sarah, you’ve been living dangerously for the past few months… This could be happening as well. A pregnancy, that is. I would suggest we go at my place and take a test. At least, to get rid of that thought.”

The thought became a certainty. I turned completely pale. Who could the father of my child be? What would I do? Who would I tell? All the reasons to choose between Luther and Costas appeared before my eyes. The certainty of Luther, and the carelessness of Kostas. Voula was holding me in her arms, while I was crying and beating myself up that I wasn’t ready for such a thing.

A few hours later, I get home and decide to take the pendant off me. I didn’t want it anymore; it did more harm than good. Its short chain couldn’t fit to pull it off my head, and so
I tried to break it out of anger. The only thing I managed to do was to hurt my neck. I try to open it but I couldn’t find the clasp, as if it had never been there. I keep pulling it until I feel the blood in my throat rush. I stop when I hear Luther enter the house. I’m ready to tell him the truth. I am leaving him for Kostas and he has to deal with it. It was over between us. Kostas was waiting for me at the entrance of my apartment building so that we could leave together already knowing about the pregnancy and my decision.

Luther listens to me carefully and was almost dispassionately to what I was telling him. I explain to him about the locket and the fake love he felt for me, that I am leaving with Kostas and maybe that it would be better for him to find the other girl he was talking to a long time ago and finally I also tell him about the pregnancy. He rolls his eyes, and hatred makes its appearance.

He called me a lot of different names. He kept cursing and the curses hurt but I had to accept them. He disturbed the whole building by shouting so loudly and I started to fear for me and my child. He raised his hand to hit me in the face and I took a step back to avoid him. He made another attempt and I started screaming for help.

Seconds later I hear the front door breaking and Kostas appears with a knife in his hand.

“Are you the asshole who is bullying my girlfriend?”, Kostas yelled with the knife in his hand.

“Are you the fucker who wants her? Firstly I will mess her up and then you can leave together!!”, Luther yells and makes a move to kick me in the stomach.
Kostas attacks him and stabs him in the back. But Luther doesn’t seem to mind the attack. It’s like he is a different person and as he is foaming in his mouth, he turns and jumps on Kostas in anger.

“Stop!!!”, I yell while they are hitting each other.

Kostas was surely losing ground and in a last attempt he stabs Luther in the stomach. Luther falls on the ground with blood running from both wounds.

In a move of desperation, Kostas realizes how much he has screwed up everything and runs away from the house and the building. I fall on my knees and look at Luther.

“You w***re.., he tells me and faints.

I start to cry. It was my fault; I couldn’t accept what happened. With my hands shaking, I call for help for Luther.

My narrative ends in the ambulance, and the locket is on fire. I know I have to get it off me. I know I should face the only person who knows how to pull it off. As I arrived at Lumienda’s two evenings later, it seemed like she was waiting for me as she was closing up her shop.

“Welcome…”, she tells me and smiles widely. “I’ve been waiting for you for a year now…”

“Can you take it off?” I ask her with all the courage I have at that moment.

“I can, but only if you accept my terms. Are you prepared for what you are about to hear?” she tells me.

“I don’t have any other choice… I’ve already lost something these days…”, I tell her, resting my hand on my now empty womb…

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