SHE (Book #1)

Chapter 36

****Tempest***

"NO! I am not going, what the hell? Why are you so calm about this if you know they were the reason why I was hospitalized?!" I screech at the top of my lungs, my throat scratching.

Gramps rubs his eyes, "Emilio said it's mandatory, he won't hurt you-"

"WON'T HURT ME?!! Have you lost your mind? I just got out of the hospital and YOU KNOW his family had something to do with it. and you sit here telling me to enter their territory, where they can easily bury my body if necessary, all ALONE!!!!" I am about to tear this house apart if it's the last thing I do, "You are unfair. This is all your fault!"

"This is not my fault. I don't even know what is going on or how you even managed to get the attention of Emilio himself or what you have to do with his sister-in-law or his brother or ANYTHING for that matter. SO do NOT open your mouth and try to turn things on me, young lady," he yells back.

I point an accusing finger at him, "If you had been more clear about the kind of life I will be living, we wouldn't be here. If you told me a long time ago that I would be going against Malachi to be your heiress instead of acting like my spot is guaranteed, WE WOULDN'T BE HERE!" my throat hurts like hell but I keep talking and yelling, " I would have never had to do the things I did, I wouldn't have put myself in this position. and now everyone is going to die if I make one wrong move, and I am TERRIFIED," I gasp for air, sobbing with no tears to cry. Pain surges throughout my body.
Because i don't blame Gramps at all.
It's not his fault, but mine. Because I let my feelings get the best of me. Because the night after Olivia's party, I was the one who decided to know more about the Stone family. I was the one who dug my own grave. I was the one who found about Mr. Stone's debt. I was the one who pushed forward and found about the affair, the money, all of it. It was my fault. It was my fault and it's killing me.

I scream loudly, painfully, and with every bone in my body.
Then the tears start flowing down my cheek, as I fall to the ground and breaking into loud sobs, my body shaking with every inhale.

I hear voices all around me and feel my hands lift me off the ground. I hear my grandfather saying things to me, apologizing. I hear myself repeating, "It's all my fault" I shake my head. Earth-shattering screams fill my head again, and I clamp my ears to drown them. Every voice around me gurgles and blends together.

My skull is shattering and for once I can't think. It's just terror. I am breaking and I can't pick up the falling pieces fast enough. I can't build the walls back enough. What's wrong with me? What's happening to me? This isn't me. This isn't me. I don't. I can't feel anything. No. I feel everything.

My mother.
I suddenly miss her flowery scent and her warm hugs. and I see her on her death bed with stage four cancer. Her curly hair gone, her face beyond exhaustion, she breathes shaking.
"You have a lethal mind, my love. And Sometimes I wonder if this world can handle you. But whatever you live on to do, do it with power," she had said.
I never did mourn her properly.
But it feels I am now

Enough.
stop. Right now. Stop doing this to yourself.

I remove my hands from my ear, the screaming as come to a stop. My tears have stopped and my sobs come to a stop. I open my eyes.

I am sitting on the couch.
Gramps looking at me, glassy eyes hand holding his chin.
Frank is kneeled in front of me, speaking on mute. I can't hear anything he is saying.
It takes a moment.
And reality comes back into the room.

"-Need anything?" I hear Frank partially ask, "Are you okay?"

I nod. I stand up. "I am sorry," I say. And walk. I walk silently to my room and close the door. The darkness of it consumes me, and I feel myself sink to the ground. I remind myself to breathe in and out, in through the nose out the mouth.