Alexander still sat in the garden, blankly overlooking the running fountain. It was very dark now, and he should probably go to bed and rest his head, he thought. But he couldn't.
He could still feel the hotness of her slap on his right side of his face. Not that the slap itself hurt him. He just couldn't push everything to the back of his mind.
He still remembered the rage on Anna's face, the raw sadness and grief that filled her tone as she spoke to him some hours ago. And most of all, her declaration of pure hatred for him.
Alexander exhaled sharply to soften the strange emotions in his mind. He didn't know why he felt like that. He had been hated before… he probably lived on people's hatred for him, and no matter how he tried to downplay it this time, he knew this was different. Anna's hatred for him felt odd.
