Epilogue

 It was strange how things worked sometimes.

Sibyl never thought she would get over the betrayal and the trauma she had endured. The sounds of a madman trotting near her head, the threats whispered into her ear, the pain she was made to suffer, all of it she was certain would live in a quiet corner of her mind. She was sure, that the minute she thought she would be over it, the experience she was made to brave, would jump out of nowhere, dissolving her determination.

 

But it didn’t happen. She did have nightmares for the next two weeks and she would wake up in the middle of the night, covered in a sheen of sweat. However, that was the extent to it.

She was stronger than she realized.

Sibyl decided she wanted to go back home. She missed her family and knew that the only way to repair the damage she had done was to fix it. Her father didn’t speak to her for almost a month and at first, she thought he still didn’t want anything to do with her.

A month later, one late night when she had woken up not because she had a nightmare, but because she was frustrated with the lack of work to do, she found her father weeping out in the veranda.

When he saw her, his sobs grew louder and Sibyl had to hug him.

“I’m sorry.” he sobbed in her ear. “I shouldn’t have been so strict with you. I made you want to leave us all. If you didn’t want to marry Jayson, I should have respected your wishes.”

Sibyl pulled back and wiped away his tears with her hand that was not still bandaged. “Father, I didn’t want to marry. I still don’t. I’m sorry. I want to make something of myself. Marriage is not for me. Please, don’t be angry.”

Her father had stopped weeping eventually and in the week that followed, had tried to convince her to settle down. But Sibyl was adamant. She just didn’t want to marry. She wasn’t interested in romance. All she wanted was to create a name for herself.

In the end, her father had relented and then promised to finance her dreams if need be. Her mother was happy and supportive as well. Adira too, though Sibyl decided it was time to bring up another controversial topic in the family.

“Adira has to go back and complete her education,” she said, one night during dinner. “Education is extremely important and she needs to build a life of her own.”

“Perhaps she would prefer getting married,” her father suggested and glanced at his youngest daughter with hope.

“Um, no. I haven’t really thought about marriage at all.” Adira went back to staring at her plate and swirling the vegetables in her stew.

“Adira needs a degree,” Sibyl said hotly, annoyed that Adira wasn’t speaking for herself. “She should have a choice to do whatever after. If she wants to go into business, or look for a job or even get married, all of that should come after she has a degree. It will give her security and the knowledge that she has options.”

Her father had glared at her. “We will think about it. Adira can do something online if she wants. I’m not sending her alone back to the city.”

Sibyl reached out and put her hand over her father’s. “Adira needs to experience the world on her own. It will build her. She needs to make friends, learn new things, experience new things. Let her go, father. She already has some friends there. Plus, I promise to check on her every weekend. It will be a short trip.”

“So, you don’t want to go to the city too?” Her mother asked.

Sibyl smiled and shook her head. “I’m happy here. Besides, I have this idea. This town doesn’t have a decent newspaper. All it has is a crummy one page letter that barely brings the news of the world. I don’t think we should only interest ourselves with what is happening across the lake and who bought which animal. We need to bring the world closer, educate the people here. News reports can do that.”

Her father had been convinced. Sibyl thought she could have asked for anything, and he would have said yes, only because he had missed her as much as she had.

Adira was sent back to the city and Sibyl had begun the process of starting her own publication. The first process was to make sure there was internet access in her little town.

As per her promise, she visited Adira every weekend. And every time, she invited Ramon too, to their get together. Adira would in turn, invite Neil and his girlfriend Ruby. They all did have a good time whenever they met, though Sibyl noticed that palpable tension between Adira and Ramon.

They tried their best to be polite in front of her, but she also saw the great lengths they went to avoid sitting next to each other.

Eventually, Sibyl had enough of it. The next weekend she was in the city, she invited only Adira and Ramon, separately. Each of them thought they would be spending the day only with her.

When they both arrived at the same time in the cafe, Sibyl gave them a big smile and made them sit.

“Talk,” she ordered.

“Um, how was your trip here?” Adira asked.

“Not to me.” Sibyl rolled her eyes. “To each other.” She almost laughed at the way they both grew awkward. Then she sighed when five minutes had passed and no one had spoken. “This little fight you both have going on was because of me. So I think I should be the one who acts as mediator.”

“It wasn’t because of you. You were the victim!” Adira was the first one to speak.

“We just have a difference of opinion,” Ramon added. “It doesn’t matter whether or not we get along or not.”

“It matters to me,” Sibyl told them. “You both are behaving like kids. I care about both of you. Whatever it is, just sort it out.”

Adira leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, looking in the other direction.

“She thinks I betrayed her,” Ramon said.

“Because you did,” Adira muttered.

“Oh,” Sibyl said. “Ramon, Adira is hurt because you were her friend and didn’t trust her with your big plan. That’s what this thing is about, right?”

“I apologized,” Ramon said.

“Once you lose trust in someone, you shouldn’t trust them again,” Adira pointed out. “That would make me just dumb.”

Sibyl nodded slowly. “Hmm, it’s not like you gave Neil a second chance or anything. I mean, I thought he literally destroyed your reputation. Those were the words you used.”

“This is different.”

“Why?” Sibyl wanted to know.

“I don’t know. I’ll just go get myself a cup of coffee.”

“That is actually one of her problems,” Ramon said, leaning forward. “She drinks too much of that stuff and gets all worked up.”

Adira let out a grunt and went to get her coffee, while Sibyl stared at Ramon and smiled. “You guys got pretty close when I wasn’t there, huh?”

“Not at all,” Ramon replied quickly. “We were working together to find you.”

Sibyl took a sip of water, hiding her smile. The whole day had gone by with Adira and Ramon accusing each other of being unreasonable. By the end of the evening, Sibyl had a headache and decided that it was of no use. While Adira and Ramon started arguing, she got up and left, returning to her sister’s apartment and getting ready to sleep.

At two a.m. Sibyl was awakened by a loud door slamming. Adira burst into the bedroom, angrily tossing her handbag and then when she saw her sister watching her with wide-eyes, gave her half a smile.

“We’ve decided to be polite with each other. For your sake,” she replied and then went into the bathroom to change into her pajamas.

The weekend after that, Sibyl met Adira and Ramon again, this time with a large group of people. Adira had made new friends and invited them to meet her sister who was running a newspaper in her town. Sibyl had taken her business online as well and had a growing readership thanks to her proficient journalism skills.

Sibyl had decided the world needed the truth and reports of events that other newspapers didn’t report because they didn’t seem too controversial.

“Positive events are rarely covered,” Sibyl told the new faces. They all caught to every word she spoke, and begged her to narrate the story of her kidnapping.

“She doesn’t want to go through all that again. It was traumatic for her,” Adira told them.

“But it happened,” Sibyl said, looking down at her right hand that was slowly healing. She could barely flex her fingers now, but at least there was movement.  “And as I promise in my newspaper, nothing but the stark truth.”

Adira gave her an encouraging smile as she started from the very beginning. Going through every detail was painful, but she wouldn’t stop. It was sort of a catharsis, and she needed to tell everyone the story.

“You should write a book about your experiences in journalism,” a girl quipped. She had bright red hair and wore purple rimmed glasses. Her name had been Anna or something. “And the risks.”

Sibyl simply smiled at the suggestion and continued her story, not forgetting to mention that Ramon and Adira had been her saviors.

“Without them, and their determination to find me, I would have still been trapped,” she told everyone. Glancing up, she saw Adira and Ramon exchange an awkward look and then turning away as if they were embarrassed.

Sibyl took a sip of her coffee, watching them both, knowing that someday they would become friends. If only for her sake.