***

While on the road, Daphne couldn’t help but think about what Nathan had said to her minutes before when they were having dinner. She didn’t like the way he responded to her like she was a nosy bitch who meddled in other people’s life.

She knew she wasn’t that kind of person, as she was just concerned as a teacher toward Chuck’s reprehensible attitude. The kid was too much and way out of himself that he was downright rude to everybody, even to his elders. For Daphne, Chuck was just so disrespectful to them that she couldn’t let it go, even if this was the first time meeting and interacting with him.

For this reason, she broke the silence between them as she clutched her purse tightly. “I know this might be way too overboard as Chuck’s tutor, and I mean no disrespect for your parenting skills with him, but I think you shouldn’t tolerate his tantrums.”

Yeah, Daphne was stubborn, and even if Nathan Kelly would get mad with her, she didn’t care, and to the hell with it.

Nathan pulled the clutch, shifting his gears. Despite not looking at her, the anger on his face swelled up that it was evident to be noticed by Daphne.

“As I’ve said before, Daphne, I know what I am doing with my nephew. If you can’t comprehend that, please just keep the advice to yourself.” Then, after a couple of seconds, as his arms were on the steering wheel, he continued, “Don’t go beyond the boundary of being his tutor and my employee. You know nothing about him and you also don’t have the right to talk about him that way. I don’t want this to become personal to you and would never desire to affect this … to your work, but please do me a favor and respect the distance between being his teacher and tutor. Am I making myself clearer to you this time, Daphne?”

Daphne became tongue-tied after that. Even though she understood his point, she still couldn’t accept his explanation. She knew her limit as Chuck’s teacher, but she also knew her responsibility along with that role. Deep in her heart, she believed that as a teacher she shouldn’t only teach the kid with basics, but also inculcate a positive and well-mannered attitude toward the kid.

Being a teacher didn’t end in the four corners of the room. To be a teacher was also to be a second parent to the child.

And because of this, Daphne was absolutely annoyed with him. “Well, I wouldn’t tell that to you if you know how to treat your nephew, Nathan,” she muttered, to which Nathan heard considerably.

“If this is how you do your work professionally, Miss Collins, then I suggest this deal between us would never last long. Pay me the fine you’ve caused for the inconvenience and the ruckus you'd made.”

Daphne gritted her teeth. “Oh, don’t you worry, mister, because I’m not like others who run away from their debts!”

“Good to know! Because if you continue being an insufferable swot, then I don’t have a choice but to fire you, Miss Collins!” he shouted, stopping the car to a screeching halt when the red light blinked at a traffic light.

Daphne scoffed. “You don’t have to worry about that, Mister Kelly, because before you can even fire me, I already quit!”

“Huh, so this is how you want to do this?!” Nathan spat back.

“Yeah, because apparently, I’m a fucking insufferable bitch!” She snapped at him and hastily walked out of the car before Nathan could reply to her.

All alone by himself in the traffic, he thumped his hands on the steering wheel, looking pissed off and irritated. “I said swot, not bitch!”

As soon as Daphne Collins dashed out of the car, Nathan was left alone with a bothering thought about her. He couldn’t explain it, but somehow, he rather felt like a jackass to Daphne for the insensitive remark that he had made.

And not because he cared about her or took notice of her, but because, at the bottom of his heart, he knew that what she had said was right. He didn’t know what and how parenting was when Chuck was given to him. Nathan was just also a young adult back then with a child-like maturity to even handle that kind of tremendous responsibility.

So, without thinking about it thoroughly, he swerved the car to turn around in the nearest corner and shifted to the right, to where Daphne exited the vehicle. Parking the car by the sidewalk, he walked on the street, trying to find a woman with dark blonde hair, who was wearing semi-formal clothes.

A few minutes had passed, and to no avail, he couldn’t find Daphne. Frustrated by it, he raked his hands through his hair and ran back and forth to the same street, scrutinizing every corner of the avenue.

Meanwhile, Daphne, who was still pissed off, was walking to the empty alley, all alone with the smoke from the car’s exhaust pipe and the flickering lights on every store sign she approached. Covered by a dark, grim night, the back street of the pathway was shrouded with an odd, deafening silence. Daphne’s back shivered in anxiousness as she felt the stiff brush of the breezy wind swirling around her as though it were whispering an omen to her.

She wrapped her arms, skidding away quickly to the eerie path so that she could get away from there as fast as possible. Turning to the left side of the alley’s corner, she collided with three buff men.

“Hey, peach! Want to come with us?” The short man whistled, wiggling her eyebrows back and forth.

Daphne just hunched her head down, ignoring the three hooligans. However, a tall man blocked her way when he cut to her front.

“Ain’t that booty banging, woohoo!” he hooted out, smirking deviously.

“You dressed up nicely, sweetheart. But it would be even better if I take those off on you!” The last man, who was quite large, scoffed.

This time, Daphne couldn’t keep quiet, and with that, she lifted her head to them with audacity and spat back, “Leave me alone! Assholes!”

The short man laughed, slapping his tall friend on his back. “Fuck dude, this one is feisty!”

“You like it dirty. Don’t you, bitch?” The bulky man among the three sneered, flashing his black smeared teeth.

Daphne cringed inwardly when her gaze promptly met his randy leer. “Get out of my way!” She warned the colossal man in front of her and pushed him away.

“Ah, this bitch likes to play!” The short man snatched her arms instantly, pulling Daphne to her. His friend, the lanky tall man, block the other side so she couldn’t have a chance to get away from them.

“Don’t ya worry, sweet cheeks, we’ll make sure you’ll have some fun!” the tall man on Daphne’s left side whispered in her ears.

Taunting shivers in her nerves ignited as his uncouth voice reverberated her thoughts, filling her mind and body with oscillating fear. She gulped deliberately when her fingers automatically curled into her sweaty palms.

“I said let me go!” Daphne miffed back.

Finally, the bulky, large man came forward. Licking his lips, he said to his two guys, “Get our lady inside, and make sure she’s all tied up.”

The two nodded at him. On Daphne’s right side, the short man uttered with excitement, “We’ll bound you so tight, honey, so you would keep on coming back.”

As soon as Daphne heard him, she tried to squirm out of his friend’s grasp. She wriggled her wrists that were tied to the two men’s hands and weighed drag her weight down so that they would struggle to lift and slog her to their place.

“No! Get away from me! You assholes!” Daphne screamed in protest.

“Ah dude, this bitch is a screamer!” The tall man commented to his friend as he slammed Daphne with a dirty rag from his jeans pocket.

As he excavated throughout the entire avenue, Nathan heard an alarming scream coming from the other side of the alley. He tracked the shrilling high-pitched voice along the corners of the sidewalks and sprinted across the block to where the sound originated.

“Daphne is that you?!” He shouted, running to the dark alley of the street, and by the time he got there, he was astounded to see Daphne with three men hauling her like a piece of sack.

“Mmph!” Daphne cried to him when she saw Nathan while a cloth was blocking her mouth as she was being dragged by the group.

He fumed with anger as he witnessed what they were about to do with her. Running toward them, he “You fucking muggers, let the lady go!”

“Aw, looks like your boyfriend is here to help you, baby!” The short man teased.

The tall man snide, “Too bad, he’ll see you fucking us three with all of your holes!”

In front of Daphne, the bulky man added, “Shut it, Whicker! You’re wasting the time. Just drag the bitch to the corner!”

Both of his friends obliged their leader and pushed her to the corner of the block. Daphne writhed her body, trying to unlash from them.

Whilst, the large man waited for Nathan to come closer to them as he matched the glowering stare of the young man.

Unaware of what Daphne was about to do, the tall man felt the blow of the lady’s heel on his shin, resulting in his excruciating whine. Consequently, the short man abruptly loosened his grip on Daphne when she kicked him in his balls.

As a result, her back was smashed into the cold, arid concrete ground when the two men dropped her. She threw the rag from her mouth, spit the awful and disgusting taste from it, and skewed her back, wincing from the massive blow of the cemented surface.

Nathan was about to help Daphne when he paused to realize that the woman didn't need his help. While watching her tearing the two hooligans apart, he found himself chuckling in wonder how a small, petite woman like her could handle those guys.

“Daphne!” Nathan shouted again to Daphne, reminding her.

Along with her shallow breaths, she didn’t think twice about getting up and running away from them when all of the sudden, the hefty man hastily pulled the tail of her hair with intense force, making her scream with agonizing pain.

“Oh no, woman, you won’t get away with us just like that!” The large man warned her as he thrust her back to his chest. “I’ll make sure you’ll obey as I fuck you so hard!”

“Let me go, you bastard!” Daphne didn’t let her fear cower her. She stomped her heels to his feet to try to dash away from him.

However, the man dodged her stomp quickly. “Honey, you’ll have to do more than that.” He called again to his two men who struggled to get up and ordered, “You wimps, get your ass up!”

Nathan noticed it right away. The situation between them took a dark turn when the two men came to help their friend again and grabbed Daphne to her feet, carrying her inside the reclusive corner of the alley.

Because of that, Nathan rushed to get to them before they could do something to Daphne. Without hesitation, he punched the stout man in the face and hit him on the side of his limbs. His opponent was able to recover from his punch. Cracking his neck, the bulky man hit his face in return.

Nathan felt the massive blow of his punch, making his vision hazy and dizzy. He then shook his head sideways, waking himself to jab the man against his cheeks. To his dismay, the large man dodged it rapidly, turning his shoulders away from Nathan.

“Ya think you can kill me with a puny cock of yours, shithead?” The man jeered at him with his arrogant gait.

However, Nathan didn’t let his insults flinch his confidence down. The man was larger than him and taller. He knew he couldn’t beat the shit out of them if he attacked the front. Bearing that in mind, he probed into the opening sides of the man, looking for his blindside.

Nathan then moved to the left side of the open street as he waited for the right time for the man to bout him. And as what he had just surmised, his opponent rushed to him, raising his arm to punch him on right.

On impulse, he sloped his shoulders back, yanked his forearm, and snapped it with a twist on his back. When he got him in his grasp, he kicked the back of his knees, making him kneel in the progression.

With a hunger to knock him down, he banged his head on the nearest light post and threw him into the street. The tall man wasn’t about to attack him back as he plummeted on the asphalt cement and blacked out into oblivion. The two men recognized what had Nathan done, which made them react quickly to help their friend.

“Mother fucking, son of a bitch!” The tall man hissed.

Requiting for their friend, the tall man tried to blow him on his jaw, but he failed to do so when Nathan, in reflex, counter-attacked him with an uppercut.

“Ah no, you shit! Don’t you mess with my brother?!” The short man then ran to smack his back with a piece of wood lying around the street’s alley. Nathan promptly noticed the wood; however, instead of dodging it, he caught its bark, gripping it tight to halt the man from hitting him.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he cautioned the man.

Nevertheless, the short man didn’t recoil from his warning and extricated away the wood from him. He then proceeded to hit him on his ribs, which Nathan didn’t calculate right away.

“Fuck you phony superman!” The short man laughed.

Nathan instantly felt his ribs being forcibly pushed inside his gut. He balled inwardly, crunching the pain of the hit and grunting to bear the throbbing ache. Biting the inside of his cheek, he stood straight in a wobble, and then, while the short man was quite having a minor victory with himself, Nathan punched him in the face, driving him away to lose his balance. He didn’t stop there as he followed her to pull him up and blasted him against the graffiti wall.

The short man met his own demise in a flash as his body fell down on the ground, together with his other two hooligan friends. As his head dropped, the blood on his nose streamed down onto his philtrum.

Taking advantage of the situation, Nathan didn’t waste his time waiting for the group to rouse up. He ran to where Daphne was and helped the lady stand. He enveloped his arms to her back for support while Daphne reclined her shoulders on him.

“You okay?” Nathan’s eyebrow furrowed. The wrinkles and lines on his forehead were so clear that Daphne struggled to stop her chest from thudding erratically.

She didn’t reply to him as her gaze met the bruises on his face. There was a large swollen patch on the corner of his mouth. Narrowing her eyes and looking at him closely, Daphne suggested. “We’ve got to get you to the hospital, Nathan. Your lips are inflamed and your ribs might have a fracture.”

He wiped the blood from the corner of his lips. Ignoring it as though it was nothing, Nathan refused, “Nah, I’m fine. Don’t sweat about this.”

But Daphne replied adamantly, “No, you are hurt. We should go, and the hospital is just three blocks away from here.

“Daphne, we shouldn’t. I could just call our family physician tomorrow,” Nathan countered her.

“No. I’m taking you to the hospital, Nathan.” She snuck her dainty arms on his back for support and continued, “Where’s your car?”

Resigning with a sigh, he pointed two blocks away from their location. Daphne helped him walk as they headed to where his car was parked. After a couple of minutes of walking, she unlatched her arms to his back and then held her palms in front of Nathan.

“Where are the keys?” she asked him casually.

Nathan didn’t contest with her. He took out the keys in his pockets and gave them to her.

“Thanks.” Then, Daphne opened the door of his car.

As he was supported by Daphne, who was behind his back, he managed to get inside the car slowly.

________________________________________

Nathan felt uncomfortable with the wrinkle lines on her forehead while he was holding the side of his ribs. Gazing up at her face, she saw her chest rise in and out as she went to the driver's seat. When Daphne finally situated herself on it, Nathan watched her close the door and buckle her seat belt.

She turned on the ignition and took off to the nearby hospital. About a few minutes later, they went to the emergency room, where the doctors checked the condition of his bruises. Daphne waited beside him as he was examined by the medical team and brought out some tests on him.

The good thing was that after an hour of examination, he was fine and as fit as a fiddle. Daphne exhaled a deep breath, hunching her head down to bury it in her palms as she heard the news.

However, Nathan, who was beside her the entire time, just looked at her in curiosity as he studied her from head to toe like she was some kind of problem that he oddly couldn’t find a solution to.

Even more, he felt his heart galloped in a flat-out beat when he recognized her hand on the top of his while the nurse announced his medical results. The doctor said he was fine and luckily his ribs didn’t crack, but why did he feel like he had a sodding fever?

It disturbed Nathan so much that he thought he needed a large dose of Tylenol to cure him from this damn madness.

After settling for the medical expenses and medication fees, Nathan and Daphne exited the hospital. Holding the bag of medications in his hand, he couldn’t keep Daphne out of his thoughts.

Apparently, the woman had bugged her so much that the logical part of his brain was barely processing right now—that was if his mind still could process right after drinking more than the prescribed dose of Tylenol.

It seemed like even with the higher dosage of the medicine, his mysterious fever still didn't subside, since it became worse when the lady beside him was just an inch away from where he was.

By the time they got to the car, Nathan grabbed the keys from her. Daphne, whose eyes were as wide as a ladle, looked at him with an expression as though she were waiting for him to say something.

Because of this, Nathan appealed to her beckon and answered, “Let me drive the car. I’m quite fine, Daphne. Besides, you have done enough already to help me.”

Daphne swerved his remarks and said, “Okay, I’ll be going. Again, thanks for helping me, Nathan.”

Nathan turned to her with his eyebrows in a burrow as he noticed the lady going to the side of the road. “I told you I'll drop you off at your place.”

“And I'll tell you now that you don't have to. I can just grab a taxi from here.” She rejected his offer immediately, her eyes fixed on the road as she waved her arms to signal for a ride.

'Why is this goddamn woman so stubborn?' Nathan grunted inwardly before he heaved a deep sigh.

“Daphne, please don’t make this more complicated. I'll drive you to your place like what we have discussed before," he reiterated.

She just looked at him haughtily. "You're the one who insisted, not me, Nathan..."

He rubbed his palms on his scruff and added, “Look, if this is because of our fight a while ago, I’m really sorry. I was wrong to say that to you. Hell, you can even keep your job as Chuck’s tutor for a compromise.”

She dropped her arms to the side. Lifting her chin to meet his gaze, her eyebrow furrowed. “I can say the same thing to you, Nathan; but I've already made up my mind and I’m not interested in taking that job back.”

"Daphne!" Nathan’s jaw twitched.

He was about to grab her arms when suddenly the woman deliberately evaded him and ran toward the taxi nearby.

"Bye, Nathan! I hope you can find your nephew a tutor who is not as nosy bitch as I am!" She got inside the vehicle quickly without saying a word to him.

"God, you woman! That's not what I said!" He grunted, raising his chin up and taking a deep breath.

Dismayed by the lady’s seemingly uncaring gesture, he pulled his car door open and went inside as he yeeted the bag by the next seat.

Immediately, he started the engine running and drove off back to the place. Nathan couldn’t shut their fight out of his mind and kept gripping the steering wheel tightly as he drove to her apartment.

'That woman is getting on my nerves!'

He realized he should not have insisted on driving her by himself and could just instruct Isaac to do his job. Nonetheless, it was too late for him to wish for that scenario, as the lady had already decided to quit the job.

***

Sunday morning greeted Daphne with incessant badgering calls from her mother, Linda. And because of what had just happened lately between Nathan and her, she didn’t have a choice but to tell her mother the truth: that she was still on the job hunt. As she had expected, her mother groaned in disapproval and was constantly fiddling with restless words to her daughter.

As a result, Daphne tried looking for job vacancies throughout the weekend. To her success, by the time Monday arrived, she was invited to an interview at one of the elite schools in the city. In her opinion, she thought she did well in answering the interviewer’s questions and caught up with the principal’s interrogation. More so, Daphne knew she had decent credentials from her high GWA in college and enough certifications on her resume that it would suffice the job specifications required for the position.

Although she didn’t have that much experience teaching in schools and was urged to let her stay at home by Maverick all the time, Daphne had a few tutoring gigs with Tatiana’s socialite friend's kids to have some on-hand experience at the job.

If odds were on her side, then she hoped she could land a job at this prestigious school.

As she walked to the steep block of the school’s entrance, she treaded to the side of the main road and was about to hail a cab when she caught notice of a familiar shadow across the street. Getting a clear view of him, she saw a man dressed in an expensive suit heading toward her as he ran across the road while cars continued to pass by.

When Daphne realized it was the man she swore to never see again, she avoided him immediately, dashing away from his sight. However, he ran like a cheetah that he had already blocked her way to get out of him.

Annoyed by his presence, Daphne stuck her tongue on the side of her cheek. “Do you mind, please?!”

He still kept on standing in front of her, trying to barricade all openings to where Daphne could run off away from him.

“Come back home, Daphne.” He held her arms and squeezed them tightly. “I want you back, baby.”

For the very first time, Daphne was perplexed to see a downcast look on Maverick. The proud smirk and valiant eyes of the man she had known soon crumbled as a soft, pleading expression confronted her today. Was this the same man she had lived with? Or was this all an act just so he could have her back again?

'He's using his puppy-dog eyes to persuade me. Ugh, god, how did I fall for that?' Daphne groused to herself.

Daphne didn’t know and never wanted to know what it meant. In fact, she doesn’t give a fuck anymore about his whereabouts. “You won’t get that from me again, Maverick.”

Maverick heaved a deep sigh. His hands were splayed on his waist while he lifted the other to reach her hand. Pressing her palms softly, he begged, “I can pay your mother’s debt, Daphne! Or let you get a job in one of the finest schools here…just, please come back home, baby.”

'Bullshit, Maverick!' Daphne had none of his shit.

She threw his hand away from her and gave him a death-defying glare. “The moment you’ve ditched me on that altar, we’re already over, Maverick. Don’t get your hopes up because I won’t get back to you ever again! So please, for the love of God, quit pestering me!”

Maverick’s humble countenance vanished instantly. Huffing a large sigh, he chafed, “Come on, Daphne! I’m trying here!”

Daphne scoffed. “I don’t care, Maverick! I’m still not going back with a narcissistic guy like you, to your pathetic house, and especially to your horrendous mother!”

His genteel eyes snapped to a livid nightmare. He snatched her shoulders, pushing her against the bark of the tree behind him, and forcibly grasping her skin in constriction.

“Don’t you insult me or my mother like that?! You have no right to do that, bitch!” The edge of his mouth curved upward. “Mom is right. You’re just like your mother: a pathetic, gold-digger slut!”

“Get off of me, jerk!” Daphne clenched her teeth.

'See, he's still the same guy I met before. The same proud and egomaniac guy who thinks he has everything!' Laughing inwardly, she was right all along.

Maverick had never changed, and he was still that same incorrigible man she had blindly fallen in love with. But now, Daphne knew better than to rub his prideful ego.

Her ex-boyfriend grimaced, baring his anger to once he called his girlfriend. “You can’t live without me, Daphne. Someday, when you’ve realized that fact, you’ll be coming back to me, begging me to take you back, bitch!”

He leaned into her ears and haunted her with his menacing voice. “So if I were you, stop squeezing yourself into your friend’s place, as you’re just disturbing her.”

She couldn’t keep her nerves calm about his appalling statements. Pushing him away from her, she derided. “You should tell that to yourself, Maverick. Stop squeezing in and out of my business, you fucking braggart!”

Then, without turning back to him, Daphne walked back again to the side street. As she hailed a cab, she heard him uttering one last sentence behind her back.

“You won’t survive in the real world, Daphne! You need me.”

She fisted her palms, pressing them with force as she waited for the taxi. In a minute, a cab stopped in front of her and ignored Maverick’s words as though she didn’t hear them when she get inside the vehicle. Along with the full tilt of the taxi’s speed, Daphne disposed of the lingering thought of Maverick’s remarks.