All right, Peter, I guess you did it. You not only screwed me in life, you screwed me in death.
I hope you're in a horrible place, I hope you're tormenting yourself on another plane of existence or have been reincarnated as a worm, although that would be much more than you deserve.
I know you are smiling at me, victorious, because I lost everything because of you. And yes, even though I made the decision to kill you, I blame you. Look what you made me do.
The remorse was becoming more and more unbearable, and it increased yesterday as soon as we returned home. Throughout the evening, I would catch glimpses of her gaze that always held high regard, and as I turned to look at her, she would smile in a way that conveyed to me in another way how much she loved me.
I constantly wondered how such a renowned lawyer, famous for her efficiency, would love someone she met working in a pharmacy and living in a halfway decent flat.
I knew that it mattered very little where I worked or my economic status, both of which are factors that should not and cannot prevent someone from loving another being, however, I am talking about experience and overcoming in between. There was a big age difference between us, she was very mature and we clearly reacted differently to certain situations.
Everything that could be considered an impediment to us having a relationship was of very little importance to her, let alone a relationship as beautiful as the one that was blossoming. Marcia was opening the doors of her life to me and I had to do the same, starting by confessing to her that I killed Peter Westerholt.
"My love, you've barely touched your food, and you've been zoning out since yesterday," the older woman commented, placing her hand on my back, rubbing that area in an attempt to comfort me. "Are you sick? Did someone say something yesterday that upset you?"
"Do you love me?" I asked her, being absolutely certain of the answer. She repeated it to me at least twenty times a day, but I needed to hear it again an impulse to tell her.
"I love you! I love you with everything I am and everything I have!" She confirmed, and proceeded to kiss my lips, to which I vaguely reciprocated.
"And you would love me no matter what?" I questioned again. Her eyes were beginning to turn troubled, and perhaps she suspected what I was about to blurt out to her; there was something else in her eyes, a hint of hope that it wasn't what she believed.
"Sure," she confirmed. It didn't sound genuine, it sounded more like something she knew she had to tell me to reassure me.
"I... I did something. I must confess, despite everything it brought up, I'm not sorry. The only thing that's torturing me is continuing to hide it."
She sighed extensively, "you killed him, didn't you?"
If the answer was no, I would obviously flatly deny it. However, my silence was answer enough.
"I hope you understand that I had no intention of hiding it because I didn't trust you, but because I didn't have the heart to tell you," I didn't even want to see her. Not only because of the shame I felt, but because her expression was definitely going to confirm to me how much I had broken her.
Marcia stood up from where we were sitting, her eyes of concern had turned to something more akin to infinite disappointment. I knew that look well, I had seen it in my mom's eyes several times and now I saw it in her, that was even more painful.
I noticed how her breathing seemed to quicken and she paced back and forth, touching her forehead gently and shaking her head in denial. Probably in her head was the thought of having fallen in love with someone who committed the worst of sins.
My eyes were filled with tears at that point, not for me, for the woman beside me and seeing how she too seemed to want to cry. My chest was sinking in the silent lapse.
"Tell me something..." I pleaded.
She opened her mouth to try to formulate a word and even raised her hand but couldn't apparently, as she said nothing.
"That explains why everyone walks away from you, doesn't it? We're your puppets that you manipulate at your convenience," she finally spoke. She wasn't just expressing disappointment, she was expressing scorn. "So an innocent woman is paying for what you did."
"Please don't say that. You saw what she put me through. Peter seemed willing to be a present father to me, until he went back to her, there's no doubt she encouraged him not to see me anymore. And even years later, she wanted to accuse me," I justified, and I didn't even know if I was making it clear to her or to myself anymore.
"It was Peter who decided not to see you," she argued, as if it was the logical thing to do. And the thing is, people like me needed rationalisation to maintain sanity, to survive from day to day.
"You said you didn't support men like him."
"I don't, but you lied to me all this time," she said, her jaw quivering and her eyes crystallising. That was breaking my heart too much, I couldn't bear even looking at her.
"Marcia, that woman can pay for the best lawyer in the world and you'll see that both the jury and the media will get her acquitted. And if they send her to jail, she'll either post bail or get out in a month," I said.
Phyllis Bowery was a woman of power. I had an exceptional lawyer who showed me what she was capable of, but if I confessed my crime, her efforts would be in vain, because I had no connections, no money to bribe anyone who stood in my way.
"You could have told me!" The emphasis on the last word indicated that it was enough that I had told her. "I want you out of my house and out of my life. I've spent my whole life running away from liars like you and I don't plan to get involved with you anymore. I feel so sorry for you and the people around you, because they will never get to know you. But what am I saying? Not even you know yourself."
"Marcia, please don't! I'm not a liar, I was just trying to protect myself. I never thought we would get this far! Every moment seemed too late to tell you the truth and every time I was about to tell you, something prevented me from doing so," I insisted, getting closer to her and I didn't care about anything but hugging her in a desperate attempt to let her perceive the wailing of my heart.
"You have ten minutes to pack your things. Walk, call a taxi, or go to the bus station... I don't care." She shoved me roughly and subsequently headed for the guest bathroom, slamming the door shut with a force that shook the wall.
In the middle of the room, my legs began to betray me little by little until I fell to the floor completely defeated, and deflated my lungs in a deafening scream that contained so much suffering.
I thought I would feel a weight leave my shoulders, but instead, I felt an enormous heaviness in every cell of my body, which was slowly bringing me down.
What stupid thing did I just do? Regardless of whether I killed that scum or not, I showed the greatest expression of my genuineness to that woman. I should have kept quiet.
When I walked into the hallway, there was the bathroom door, on which I gently rested my ear. The sobs of the woman I loved could easily be heard, causing me to hate myself more and more.
I gave two soft knocks on the door.
"It's been five minutes, you have five minutes left," she notified me. "If you don't leave, I'll call the police. Every minute beyond the time I gave you is trespassing."
I was so shocked at her response. I didn't even flinch at answering and better headed off to do as she said.
I grabbed the suitcase that was already beginning to gather dust from being in storage for so long, as visits to my apartment began to become less frequent until everything I needed was already at the older woman's house.
I took my belongings, as much as the suitcase would allow. I would definitely have to ask Marcia to let me come get the rest.
A part of me told me to take advantage of said occasion to beg for her forgiveness, but the more rational part of me asked me to give her time. So I had already decided that, when I saw her again, I was not going to commit the imprudence of bothering her.
With my suitcase in hand, I headed for the front door, and with a broken heart, walked to the bus stop fifteen minutes away.
It would be the last straw to call Stefan and just a few days before Christmas, to ruin his plans and ask him to take me home because it was over between me and my girlfriend. I had enough of being a burden to the people I loved.
So I went home, threw myself on my bed without taking off my shoes and cried myself to sleep. I only woke up to eat, to order food and to receive food. The only exceptions were when I had to change into more comfortable clothes and when I went grocery shopping.
Being awake terrified me, because my first thought was that scene where Marcia's face projected endless disappointment and her words were repeated over and over again to the point that I could actually hear them and not just think about them. I questioned if it was really true what she was saying, and I didn't realize that because it was my nature and my normality to be so selfish. And that's what my Christmas consisted of, sleeping most of the time to avoid any thoughts crossing my mind.
I thought this year, it would be all different but this was just another of the several bad experiences during these dates. Maybe I was not even meant for anything but a constant loop of this shit.
Maybe in another reality, everything was different.
In another reality I didn't kill Peter and I learned to handle my resentment differently, understanding that he would live through the hell he single-handedly created. And of course the universe would have introduced me to Marcia any other way, probably meeting her in a coffee shop like so many romantic clichés out there.
In another reality, I told her from the beginning what I did, or took advantage of one of the many opportunities I was given to do so. The case remained unsolved and became one of many that were never solved.
In another reality, it would be the two of us along with Kyle and Travis, opening presents, taking pictures with Marcia's Polaroid while sipping hot chocolate.
Sadly, in my reality, I made these horrible decisions that led to this.
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Ya'll don't know how excited I was for this chapter. Enjoy. 🫶🏼