Sorry Sir I Don’t Want You Back by Little Angelic Devil
Chapter 77

Finley looked at Keith but found he was still looking at Hudson while sipping his whiskey calmly as if he had expected this to happen. "How so?" Keith asked Hudson, who still had his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Hudson then proceeded to tell them about what happened that day, how he tried to be gentle and nice to Cherise and didn't lose his temper at all, even when his grandmother had ignored him and chose to speak only with Cherise throughout dinner. "That doesn't sound like you are hurting him," Finley pointed out. "You sounded sweet and even threw away your pride to drive a pink car."

"Yeah, you'd think so," Hudson mumbled. "They looked so happy, and I didn't think my actions would also hurt my grandma. I'd caused them to be separated, and it made my grandma lonely."

Keith and Finley stayed silent, waiting for Hudson to elaborate on how he had hurt Cherise after what seemed like a lovely day.

Finley finally cleared his throat, unable to bear his curiosity. "So, umm... What happened?"

"It was the first time we've talked comfortably since our divorce..." Hudson frowned and shook his head. "Since we've known each other."

Then he fell silent again, making Finley want to shout at him to just tell him what had actually happened. He was curious by nature, and because of his love for gossip, he didn't like a story to be left hanging.

As if sensing his anxiousness, Keith glared at him, and Finley nearly cowered. Keith seldom got angry or showed his irritation, but once he did, it could even be worse than Hudson. As they said, the quiet ones were the most dangerous. Visit Ebookex.com to read the complete chapters for free. Some sentences are incomplete if you are not reading this novel on Job ni b. com. "Until I told her it was her fault for not fighting back while being bullied." His words were barely a whisper, making Keith and Finley only able to see his lips moving to form them but not hear any of it.

"Umm... Can you repeat that?" Finley asked slowly. He didn't know if Hudson was sober enough to spill more juicy gossip, but he would die trying.

Hudson lifted his head from the couch's headrest and looked straight at his two best friends with his bloodshot eyes.

"I blamed her," he said softly as he brought his hands down, placing his elbows on his thighs, and his two hands cradled the rock glass.

Although his voice was still soft, this time, it was loud enough for both Keith and Finley to hear his words.

"You....blamed her." Finley said. A statement, not a question. "How?"

Hudson swallowed and looked down at the glass of whiskey in his hands. For once in his life, he was ashamed of himself and couldn't even meet his two best friends' eyes. Keith looked at Hudson, whose back was hunched and looked desolate. He didn't look like the mighty CEO of the Amery Group. Gone was his arrogance and confidence.

To be truthful, given Hudson's nightmares and light depression, Keith was worried when he saw his friend looking this helpless.

"Hudson? What happened then?" Keith prompted gently.

Hudson dragged a long breath and released it before telling them, "I blamed her for allowing us to bully her."

Keith frowned while Finley's eyes went huge, and he gasped.

"You... You blamed her for letting us bully her?" Finley asked in disbelief.

"Was it because you always thought of her as a gold digger?" Keith tried to analyze the reason behind Hudson's hurting Cherise with his words.

He didn't include himself in the equation because she never really thought of Cherise as a gold digger based on the few times they met during her marriage with Hudson.

Cherise always wore practical clothes, sometimes not even fashionable. If she were a gold digger, she would have shown off everything Hudson ever bought her or even the things she purchased herself using Hudson's money, but she never did that. "I wished." Hudson smiled bitterly. Keith's words only made him feel more ashamed of himself.

If he accused her of pretending to be a gold digger, it'd be much better than what he had said to her.

"What did you blame her for, then?" Keith asked, his voice still calm.

"You know how she could fight back, whether verbally or physically," Hudson tried to explain as best as his tipsy mind could. "But when we were married, she never did those things, and I blamed her for it. She could have fought back, but she didn't. She never fought back. She always kept silent when we bullied and abused her."

The room fell into silence. So silent you could hear a pin drop from another room.

"You... blamed her for not fighting back," Finley gulped, feeling guilty once again because he was one of the people who loved to taunt her whenever they met, and as Hudson said, she would keep quiet and take whatever humiliation they hurled at her. Keith sighed heavily and said with a serious tone, "Hudson, that's fucked up."

Finley ducked his head down, hiding his face because if he were Hudson, he might do the same and now he felt as ashamed as Hudson, especially since Keith had called them out.

"She was the victim, and you blamed her," Keith continued. "She didn't fight back not because she didn't want to, but because she loved you."

Hudson let out a humorless laugh. "Don't you think I know it? She said the same thing as you. She never fought back because she wanted me to accept her. Because she loved me."

Keith looked at his best friend, whose eyes seemed to have turned even more bloodshot.

"Let me ask you this, Hudson..." Keith said, then looked at his other best friend. "And you, Finley. What would happen if she retorted back when you humiliated or taunted her? What would happen if she fought back against Dahlia, Polly, or even Emely?" "We would hate her even more," Finley answered with more guilt.

"And you, Hudson, do you think the same way?" Keith turned to look at Hudson, who was still looking down at his glass.

Hudson could only give a sharp, slight nod. He didn't want to feel more ashamed or guilty than he was now, but he knew it was inevitable.

"So why did you blame her for it?" Keith asked, making sure his tone was not accusatory. "She did that because she loved you. She didn't want any of you to hate her more."

Hudson's shame and guilt were replaced by exasperation when he heard Keith's words.

"I only wanted to know why," he said, nearly slamming his glass against the table when he placed it there.

He ran his hands through his face and hair and said with a slightly raised voice, "It just came out. I never meant to blame her. I just wanted to know the reason why she never fought back."

"And you never thought the reason was because she loved you so damn much?" Keith raised an eyebrow at him.

He was starting to get exasperated by Hudson's lack of emotional intelligence that he had resorted to using words he seldom used, like 'damn'.

For someone who was supposed to be a genius, he had such a low EQ, but Keith supposed it was because of the lack of maternal love from Dahlia, so he couldn't really blame Hudson for it.

"I-" Hudson couldn't continue his words because that reason never occurred to him.

"Hudson," Keith sighed again and advised him, "If you want to get Cherise back, you need to think of her feelings, be it now or back then when you were married. You can't be selfish and demand her to answer whatever you want to hear. You gave her scars, and she might not want to talk about the past. You have to understand that."

It was then that he realized how selfish he had been because of how he had been on top of the food chain in Country B.

He had always had people answering to him, bowing to him, and Cherise was not an exception when they were still married, when she was still in love with him, when he was her world.

But Cherise was not the same woman anymore. She had fallen out of love with him. She didn't love him anymore and had made it clear more than once.

Yet despite his effort to change, a part of him still saw her as the same woman who would submit to him, and he pushed her to still be one without realizing it.

That was why he accidentally blamed her, making her think that she deserved all the bullying and abuse even though it wasn't his intention.

As Keith said, he never thought of her feelings. Now or when they were still married. He only cared about his, about getting what he wanted.

"You are right, Keith," he finally admitted. "I was selfish. I shouldn't force her to do what she didn't want to do or answer to me. I've lost that privilege the moment I divorced her."

"Are you going to still pursue her even if she's against it?" Finley asked.

"Even if I try not to be selfish, I won't give up on that," Hudson said with determination. "Not until she marries someone else. And I won't let it happen."

Keith looked at Hudson and smiled slightly. To admit that he was wrong and selfish was a significant step already. But honestly, knowing Hudson, he would most probably fucked up again.

His declaration that he would still pursue Cherise and make sure she wouldn't marry someone else just proved Keith's point.

Hudson was, after all, arrogant, used to people obeying him, ruthless, and from what he could see now, very possessive of Cherise.

The three best friends went quiet with different thoughts on their minds until Hudson remembered a pivotal word Cherise had said to him.

"Abused," he said without thinking.

Keith and Finley looked at him with confusion while Hudson's heart thumped wildly in his chest, and not because of happiness. "Cherise said she was abused," he said and started to feel sick.

Finley, who was as clueless as a person could be, said with shame, "Well, we did abuse her mentally and emotionally."

But Keith saw Hudson's expression and caught the meaning behind his words.

"Are you saying someone abused her physically?" he asked carefully, seeing how green Hudson had become.

Hudson nodded. "She said." He gulped for air. "She said she was kicked, punched, pinched, stomped on until she was bruised."

He hadn't registered those words before, but now that he had, he felt bile in his stomach traveling to his throat, and he sprung from his seat, rushing toward the nearest bathroom to empty his dinner and the alcohol he had drank.

Keith and Finley moved on auto-pilot when they saw Hudson covering his mouth and rushed toward the bathroom. Finley went to take a bottle of water while Keith, as a doctor, ran after Hudson to the bathroom to make sure he was alright. Hudson kept throwing up until there was nothing left, and he was dry-heaving, and despite his disgust for anything dirty, he leaned his cheek against the toilet seat, his energy depleted.

Keith and Finley waited patiently until Hudson was able to stand up before Finley gave him the bottle of water for him to gargle and rinse his mouth, and watched him wash his face.

They returned to the living room, and Keith checked on him to make sure he was okay.

Once they were settled, the atmosphere around them became even heavier.