Deadly Love

Chapter 21

I kept staring blankly at the wall while sitting on the bed, hugging my knees to my chest. Emanuele's words kept running through my mind.

When I am gone this knowledge will die with me.

My mind still wasn't able to grasp the idea of him sacrificing himself for me and my brother, while my heart was bleeding since he had left. Because in my heart I knew Emanuele already has made his decision and he wasn't going to change his mind. There was nothing I could do to convince him otherwise. But my brain had refused to register that and was still in denial. It had completely shut down and no matter how hard I was trying to think of ways that could alter Emanuele's decision, it just wasn't cooperating. No matter how much I cried, or screamed while clutching onto my chest, the pain wouldn't go away but worsened. It felt like he was already gone.

The finality of his words baffled me. For a long time I kept thinking, how can he make a decision to die? How can he already prepare himself and was ready to give up on life just to save the people who have done nothing but hurt him? But then I thought, hadn't I done the same? I had given up on life so many times; I was ready to die and had come to terms with it so many times, just because I thought I had nothing to live for!

At that time I had thought Charlie was dead, my family was already gone, and so I saw no reason to carry on with my pretentious existence. How could I continue to be when it was so hard to live past another day and difficult to breathe every second of every minute! When it was so painful to muster a smile on my face and laugh even when I had no reason to just for the sake of pretences! Every day was excruciating but just the thought of Charlie being furious about me giving up on life and my parents being disappointed, was enough to drive me to welcome the next day. Even that hope was lost when I was sure Charlie was gone and will never come back. When I had thought he was dead. I was ready to ignore everything I had at that time. I was ready to ignore my friends, ready to forget about Ben and most importantly I was prepared to disregard the love I felt for Emanuele, even if it was the most insane emotion that I felt at the time. It is even now!

I was prepared to be ungrateful and look past everything I had, be ignorant and still find excuses to end my life under the justification that "I had no one to live for", even if I had plenty of people. Even Emanuele's love at the time seemed irrelevant and not good enough to live. Even if he was the main reason for my pain, he was still there to pick up the pieces of my life. He was there to console me, offer me solace in his arms even when it was the last place on earth I wanted comfort in. He was unknowingly always there and even if I don't want to admit it, he reduced my pain. He made it bearable.

But even that didn't make me want to stay. My love for him was not strong enough to make me reconsider my decision of leaving this world, so how can I expect him to do the same?

Even if I emotionally blackmail him, confess my love for him, blurt out my wishes to be with him after this is over, show him my appreciation for whatever he has done for me, will that still be enough for him to change his mind? Will he reconsider his decision; because that is the only card I have up my sleeve!

I have nothing but my love for him to make him come with me and get rid of this madness that is plaguing his mind right now. I can only offer him myself and expect him to abandon his irrational and unacceptable decision. But again...will I be enough? Will I be good enough to change his mind when he wasn't good enough to change mine?

Emanuele's situation now is similar to mine when I had made that decision. I had no one left... at least that is what I kept telling myself. Everything Emanuele cared about and owned has been taken away from him. Everything he deemed precious is lost to him. His family has given up on him even if they are not related by blood and they are the ones who are after his life now! That would make anyone lose their mind and accept the ending result and the inevitable. And the only woman he ever cared about, according to his own words was the one who took everything away from him! The same woman who he is trying so hard to protect! I am the one who pushed him in this situation; I am the one responsible for his misery and the danger to his life. It's only me who is at fault for his decision to sacrifice himself and it's only me who should prevent that from happening!