To Err Is Human

Faulty One

Anna tucked Angelo's right hand into his blanket one last time. She had been doing the same thing over and over again for the past ten minutes. She was anxious, more like scared and worried about him. The least she could do was get him comfortable enough until surgery. She increased the room's heat a little right after she checked the intravenous drip to make sure it was going at the pace.

She stopped for a minute, lowering her gaze to the faint scar on his wrist, the one she almost didn't notice until she took a double look. She held her breath for a second staring at the cut. It was a properly stitched cut, almost invincible too.

How on earth had she never seen that before? She raised her head to his look at him, sadness welling up in her heart again.

Just how much hurt and pain had he been through? How long did he have to go through it alone? The world wasn't fair to either of them but why did it look like he was going through it worse than she was?

She swallowed hard

"You've been shot too haven't you?"

She almost jumped out of her skin at the sound of Sophie's voice. How on earth did she forget Sophie had been sitting on the couch pretending to watch TV while all along, she was watching Anna take care of Angelo.

Anna exhaled, taking deep breaths to calm her racing heart. The thought that Angelo had ever been suicidal scared her a lot, no it wasn't fear... It was sadness. Just how lonely was he?

She exhaled.

What was that Sophie was talking about anyway? She had never remembered telling anyone she had taken a bullet before neither could she remember taking one.

She slowly turned and squinted her eyes.

"I didn't mean shot literally."

Sophie got up slowly and moved to the bed. She still remained beautiful even in a hospital dress and with all her make up gone. Anna watched her sit beside Angelo's legs. She lowered her gaze to Anna and smiled brightly.

"I meant with Angelo's cupid arrow."

A cupid arrow?

Sophie smiled.

"He's not an easy person to hate Anna. No matter how much you try to, no matter how much we all tried to, he always had a way to show us how beautiful his heart was and he kept doing that till we had no other choice but to fall in love with him, you have."

Anna returned her gaze back to Angelo.
Was it really that obvious? Was Shink right after all? Was Anna getting really bad at clouding her emotions? Sophie had barely been there for a day and she could see it already.

"You know when Angelo called to tell me he was getting married to this Atian lady so he could save the company, I couldn't believe it. I just knew mother made him do it. Angelo was never the type to do anything he didn't want to except it was for family, except it was for her. He had lived all his life doing all he could just to get her to accept him but she never did. I told him, I asked him how sure he was , I told him that this marriage could change everything but do you know what he said to me? "

She looked at Angelo.

"He said he wasn't trying to change much. He said he wasn't greedy for power , all he needed to change was the way mother felt about him. He needed to show her he could be the son she wanted him to be."

Sophie exhaled, and reached for Angelo's hand. She didn't take her eyes off him

"All he had ever done is try to prove that to her but she doesn't care about him. That's one thing about mother, She doesn't care about anyone but herself. I knew that, he knows that but he can't seem to stop blaming himself. He thinks she changed because of him, that our family changed because of him and no matter the number of years that passed by, he's still affected by it. "