Madness

Chapter 78

~Odero si potero si non invitus amabo.~

Steve had been able to wrest a couple of days from his father, but there had been no change in the situation. Douglas had locked himself in his room after talking to his father, not even going out to eat. He wouldn't talk to anyone, occasionally Steve and I would try to contact him, but it seemed impossible. George had given a categorical order not to enter the room, and for an extra measure of security, he would lock himself and Joanne in their room every night. I wasn't afraid of him, but I knew he hated me, despised me, maybe I even disgusted him, though I didn't care, I wanted to talk to him. In the middle of the night I brought him a tray of leftover food and put it on the floor. I knocked gently and waited for his response, but it never came.

"Douglas, it's me! Please open up for me! I brought you some food!"

No answer. I tried knocking again, but there was no response. It was like the room was empty.

"Douglas, please! I can explain, there is a reason why I did what I did."

The stony silence made me burst into tears and I rested my forehead on the wood. I tried again to beg him, to plead with him, but there was no response. I leaned my back against the door and slowly slid down to sit on the floor with one of my hands resting on my lap. I knew I was doing this for the baby, maybe all this pain made sense after all. I closed my eyes and had a flashback of all the times we had been together. How could I forget the warmth of his body as we cuddled up in his bed. The rain was falling fast and the lightning was lighting up the night sky as if it were day. How could I forget how perfect his skin could be, so smooth, so soft? How unforgettable it could be when I ran my hand over his body. How could I forget his full, blood-red lips that had kissed every part of my body. I had loved and hated them so often. How could I forget all her tattoos that told his story. If I closed my eyes I could see them, I knew the location of each one. How could I forget the way he had shown me his beautiful, delicate soul and how it was now shattered. We had both noticed how the pieces of our souls fit together perfectly, as if it was one. I felt that he loved me and I would have given everything for him, he had become my life and I would have done everything for him, but this was our baby, I couldn't lose the only part of him that I had left.

"I love you Douglas! I love you with all my being and I will love you until the end of time, even if you stop, I will still love you, I can't help it. I feel this... pain and I don't know how to fight it, it's like someone pierced my heart, but maybe it would be better. You once told me that death is only a passage. You are right! I'd rather die than live without you. It hurts too much! Please let me in! I love you Douglas! I love you!"

This silence did nothing but crush my heart, I could feel it stop beating. I wanted so much to close my eyes and never open them again. The worst pain for a broken heart was that it could not die, it would have to go on anyway. Love is a life sentence. You should have lived forever in pain, never having a moment, a minute of respite. Death is too easy for love, it wants you to suffer, it wants you not to have a moment's rest even in your dreams. I dreamt of being in his arms, smelling his heavenly scent, his angelic laughter. And then I wake up in hell. I wake up in an empty bed without him. That's what dreams do, they build you the most beautiful world, only to be crushed by reality. But all I wanted was to spend one more hour with him, just one last hour, to say goodbye, to ask him to remember me forever.

"Are you done with your pathetic whining?"

"Can't I even suffer in peace now?"

"Do it somewhere else, not in my house.L

I gasped as she threw something at my legs and was surprised to see it was a one-way ticket to New York. I looked at her as she looked down at me with an air of superiority.

"What is this?"

"A ticket to New York, you don't think you are going to stay here, do you? You are no longer with him, so you have no reason to stay. I suggest you start packing."

After she left, I looked at the ticket that was going to take my world away from me forever.

An ambulance came for Douglas the next morning. The door to his room was always locked, and even when they asked him to open it, they had to break it down in order to get in. Douglas stood quietly looking out the window as if the nurses had not come for him. The two men came forward with straitjackets in their hands, as Joanne had ordered. Douglas did not blink and let them do their work. They escorted him down the stairs to the vehicle and locked him in the back as if he were a dangerous lunatic. I could see all the pain in his eyes at that moment, and I had the most helpless feeling that there was nothing I could do. The ambulance left and with it went the perfect half of my soul. George watched the ambulance drive away and I knew the blank look he had on his face that night would never go away. The old George would never come back without his favorite son. In each of us, Douglas had left something behind and then taken it with him, and for me, he had left the most important thing. No one suffered as I suffered, no one could understand my pain. My life was being torn away from me in that ambulance and my heart was drifting farther and farther away with every meter that damn vehicle traveled. Douglas had filled me and emptied me, and no one would fill the hole he had made in my heart. He had brought out the most beautiful being in me, he had brought out a beautiful creature that I did not yet know, and now he was being treated like a monster. But sometimes monsters are beautiful creatures that we attribute our sins to, and that is why they carry the weight of humanity's mistakes. I had heard the comments that night: how they thought that he was a snake because he had attacked the woman who had raised him, that no one was going to stand by him. Public opinion had already condemned him without knowing his story, his reasons. Public opinion had already labeled him: he was a monster. That is why I was so proud to shout it out to the world: I am in love with this monster.