Page 29 of Delirium
Ophelia thought I didn’t remember it. She thought my brain stopped me from remembering one of the worst days of my life, but I remembered every single moment. I remembered that knife slicing through my skin, burrowing deep inside.
I remember her screaming, her tear-stained eyes, and her begging me not to leave her.
I remember thinking I would die, thankful that her face would be the last one I would see.
I remembered everything, and I wished I didn’t. It would have been so much easier hating her than loving her, but I gave up on fighting against my heart. I gave up on wishing things were different because they never would be.
Ophelia was my destiny, my beginning, and my ending. I’d be damned if I allowed anyone to take her away from me.
“You’re not taking her from me,” I said, looking at him. “She’s mine.”
“She’s not yours.” Lazar chuckled. “Ophelia belongs to no man. She doesn’t belong to you, or me. She’s never belonged to anyone because she doesn’t need us. I’m not saying this to rival you, Storm, or to get you angry.” Well, he was failing at that. “Ophelia is a woman who’s very much capable of taking care of herself. She doesn’t need us to make things right. Hell, she doesn’t even need us to help her with this Belladonna person, or with Albanians and the Outfit. She’s allowing us to help her. She let us enter her life, and she’s keeping us there because she wants us.” He looked down at the table, playing with the napkin in front of him. “It is more important to be wanted, than to be needed. When you’re needed, you don’t know if that person would ever be with you if they had a different choice. But when you’re wanted,” he looked up at me, “that means she chose you. She chose you, Storm. Out of all those other men, she chose to be with you. She chose to stay.”
It was as if he sucker punched me.
“I offered her to go to Russia with me. I offered her the Syndicate, the world for fuck’s sake, and she didn’t want it. She stayed with you because she wants you. She stayed because being with you is more important to her than running away. And let’s be honest, she’s been running her entire life. Why can’t you see this?”
Because I was too afraid to let her back in. I didn’t have a problem saying all those things, but deep inside, I wasn’t ready to let her have all of me.
I wasn’t ready to let her in, because letting her in meant she would be able to see every single part of me. It meant that I would need to share my world with somebody else.
She wasn’t just a cut chaser, wanting to become an Old Lady. She was my equal. She always was, and I was allowing my fear to consume me, falling into old habits.
“But, Storm,” Lazar started speaking again. “If you ever hurt her again. If I ever get another call where she’s fighting her tears, I promise you,” he grinned, “what my brother did to you would be a child’s play compared to what I’m capable of doing. Don’t fuck with her feelings if you’re not planning on returning them back. Let her go if you’re not one hundred percent in.”
He was right. This motherfucker, who I had never met before, was right, and I didn’t know what to say. I just stared at him, processing everything he said, trying to get over my stupid fear of letting her in.
“Good, you two didn’t kill each other,” Ophelia said as soon as she came back. I had completely missed seeing her walk back to us. “Is everything okay?” she asked, looking at the two of us when neither Lazar nor I responded.
“Everything is perfect,” I mumbled, unable to look at her.
Here we were, right in front of her father, and I couldn’t look at her. She knew me better than anyone and she would be able to see right through me.
She asked me to choose her, to show her that I really wanted her. Like the coward I was, I chose my Club, knowing that I actually could have both only if I stopped overthinking everything.
I played right into Belladonna’s hands, putting Ophelia aside, parading Nova in front of her, trying to hurt her just how she hurt me.
I never should have done that. If I didn’t want to truly be with her, to open myself up, I shouldn’t have brought her back. But I couldn’t let her go. I couldn’t imagine my life without her, but maybe it was for the best, letting her go.
Yet, I couldn’t do that. The mere thought cut through me like a sharp knife, and I knew I couldn’t let her go.
Ophelia sat down, her eyes trained on me, and I could feel the questions bubbling in her mind. The smile she wore earlier was nowhere to be seen now, and like in a dream, I could see Lazar’s lips moving, I could hear their voices from faraway, but I couldn’t understand what they were talking about.
“We should go.” I suddenly stood up, halting the conversation they were having. “It’s getting extremely late, and we still have another hour or so to reach Emercroft Lake.”
Ophelia’s eyes narrowed, understanding slowly passing over her features. But she had it wrong. She had it all wrong, and I hoped she would understand what I had to say.
“Well, don’t let me keep you.” Lazar grinned, standing up along with Ophelia. “Think about what I said, Storm.” Lazar looked me straight in the eye, a somber expression on his face. “And it was nice meeting you.”
“Likewise,” I grumbled.
I would have been able to feel Ophelia everywhere. In a room full of people, my eyes would always search for hers, needing that assurance that she belonged to us, but right now, I couldn’t look at her. Right now, I wondered if bringing her with us was a good idea at all.
I’d tried doing things for her ever since she came out of captivity, showing her that things could be different, but it was my guilt talking.
I started walking toward the exit. She followed me, wordlessly, too fucking quiet for the thunderstorm brewing inside of me. Indigo, Atlas, and Creed followed after us, and I couldn’t wait to step outside into the fresh air, to think, to plan, to fucking put a stop to this madness.
“I figured you two would need to talk,” Atlas mumbled from behind us. “So Creed and I will drive in a car with Indigo and you two can take the car we came with.”
