Page 147 of Delirium
“I need you, baby,” I murmured, putting my cheek on top of the bed, right next to her hip, looking at her face. “I need you with me. Life makes no sense if you’re not here. Nothing makes sense if you aren’t with me. You gave me the most perfect gift, Ophelia, and I need you to wake up so that I can show you how thankful I am. How much I love you. The plans I have for us. I want it all, you know, and I want it with you.
“And if you’d like, I would even want more kids. One more who looks like you and one more who looks like me. Our little clones.” I chuckled. “I have a feeling that Malia is going to be a hellraiser, just like her mommy, but we need you to come back to us. If you see the light, don’t you dare fucking go into it. I know it looks pretty, but you aren’t allowed to go there.”
My body felt too small for the feelings coursing through my veins. My heart was too fragile to even think of her leaving us, because I wasn’t lying… I couldn’t imagine my life without her. Years ago, I could have, because she was nothing more but a figment of my need, the girl I thought I had dreamed of.
I wasn’t ready for her, for her spark to illuminate my life, for her demons to so perfectly fit with mine. I wasn’t ready for Ophelia Aster then, but I was more than ready now. I was ready for us to live life without the impending danger from those that wanted to hurt her.
I was ready for sleepless nights, football games, recitals of our kids and lazy Sunday mornings where both of us would just lie in the bed for hours on end.
I was fucking ready, and I needed her to come back, to be ready as well, to truly start living, with me.
“Just come back,” I whispered, feeling my eyelids closing. “Come back to me.”
I would do everything in my power to show her how beautiful life could be. Even after everything we went through, it could be so perfect if you had the right person by your side. And I knew—we were perfect for each other.
As my eyes closed, lulling me into sleep, I prayed for the first time in years. I prayed for her to be okay, to come out of this, to look at me, annoyed that she had to stay in the hospital.
Slowly succumbing to the darkness, I felt the onslaught of memories, both good and bad, rushing to the forefront of my mind. I embraced them, replaying every single thing we did together, everything that made us who we were, and I let myself fall asleep, hoping that by tomorrow, she would be looking at me, bitching because she had to be here.
30
MAYA
I wasn’ta stranger to pain, to sorrow and anger, but I had never felt like I did tonight. The moment I saw that spineless little bitch running out back, with my sister’s kids in tow, I fucking lost it. I would’ve killed them both on the spot if they weren’t holding the twins, and I wouldn’t even blink an eye.
If there was one thing I learned during my time in Mexico was that forgiveness was a powerful tool, but it didn’t mean you had to use it. Just because someone repented, because they apologized, it didn’t mean you had to accept it. Not accepting it didn’t make you a bad person, it made you fucking human, and that’s what all of us were striving for.
To feel human.
To feel alive in the midst of the terror our lives had become.
To push through when everything else was against you.
And for me, the thing that would make me feel alive tonight would be the head of that motherfucking piece of shit on a platter.
But as I stepped through the main door of the house, Creed stepped in front of me, torment I had never seen before evident in his eyes, and I remembered that he knew Ava. That before our parents screwed us over, the two of them were together, expecting a baby, until it was all taken away.
“I know what you’re going to do,” he murmured without any strength, and I knew he wasn’t here to stop me.
“Are you going to stop me?”
“No.” He shook his head. “That girl down there…” he shuddered. “That’s not the Ava I used to know.”
“Or maybe you never really knew her,” I added, seeing the realization dawning on his face. “I think that you all were fooled with her sweet persona and the mask she was wearing. But Creed,” I placed a hand on his shoulder, “I saw through her long before any of you did, and that was why she always hated me so much. Why she always bitched to Ophelia about me. And I’m sorry this is all hurting you, but you gotta know—none of it is your fault.”
“I just…” he shuddered. “I can’t believe she would do something like this.”
“The sooner you realize that the girl we’re holding down in the basement isn’t the girl you used to love, the better it will be. I know she has always been jealous of Ophelia and everything she had, but this… this is more than that.”
“I know,” he admitted. “But there’s no excuse for the monstrosities she’s committed, and I can’t fault you for doing this.”
I knew he wouldn’t be the problem. There was another person in this house right now who would try to stop me. I didn’t have to be clairvoyant to know that he would do anything to save his fucking sister, and that left as on opposite sides, because I wouldn’t let this go.
Not just because she tried to kill Ophelia and take her kids away, but because she took my kid from me. She took my son away, making me believe that I was all alone in this world, that there was nobody coming to save us.
So I learned how to fight. I learned how to survive, how to plan and how to gather people around me who could help me with my plan.
She took away the person I loved the most, breaking my heart over and over again, and if he thought I would let it go, he had another thing coming.
