☆☆☆ Chapter 28 ☆☆☆
Happy Thoughts
*Ane's Point of View (POV)*
I didn't want to connect the dots, but all was far too clear and I couldn't dare to excuse myself from it all. My hands, coated with Jade's crimson life force, felt her sticky warmth adjust to room temperature over time while the pretty little pocket knife rested on my lap after a job well done.
I've done it, I've finally done it. I've lost it, just as I thought I would someday.
No, no, no. Happy thoughts. Teresa's right here, with me── with Jade, doing her best to care for her in between sobs and hiccups. Jade's going to be fine, Teresa's taking care of her. Teresa was gonna be a doctor, who else can do the job here if not Teresa? There's no way Teresa's gonna let Jade slip away, right? There's no way Teresa's gonna make me a murderer, right?
I didn't do anything. Someone like me, beautiful both inside and out, can't do anything. I am a goddess that came down from the heavens, to show how perfection truly is, to demonstrate how humanity can never obtain it.
No, no, no. Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts. No, no, no. I killed her, didn't I? I killed her, I did. I killed her, and I know it.
No, no, no. I didn't. I would never do that. I've never done that and I've never thought of that. I never touched her, I never hurt her, I never impaled her with a knife, I never tried to impale her with a knife, I didn't count how many times I impaled her, it definitely wasn't eleven times and it was definitely zero plus eleven times. I never impaled someone with a knife, tried to impale someone with a knife, never poked anyone with a knife, never threatened anyone with a knife. I never threatened Daniel with a knife, I never put one against Teresa's throat, I never stabbed her. No, no, no.
Then he came── my sweet, sweet angelic Daniel. He would understand, right?
☆☆☆
After gingerly lifting the mobile telephone up to his ear, Daniel dialed the emergency services. His attention didn't leave his sister's body 'til he noticed me shivering in a corner from his side vision, and once our eyes locked onto each other the both of us fell into the hellish fire that thrived within me. Ane killed her, yes she did, yes I did, yes I killed her, it purred, licking our skin with its horrid heat, roasting us alive with a sickly calm demeanor, over and over and over again, while enticing the devil himself to come out and play with my mind once again. Yes, she wasn't moving, not even an inch, and yet here I am looking at her brother with puppy eyes as my sister did worthless efforts to revive her. Regardless of that fact, my boyfriend continued to examine me frantically like one would to a ticking time bomb as he talked to the operator on the phone. He occasionally bit not his lips but rather the side of the index finger from his free hand. Would that calm me down, too?
He immediately stopped after seeing me do it, and instead let his free hand roam about aimlessly. It was only then that I realized his hands were trembling just as much as my entire self.
When he had nothing else to say, Daniel let the phone slide off of his hands and onto the ground, making a loud thud that made Teresa jerk a bit── and if I'm not crazier than I already am, I also managed to see Jade's feet twitch. Mind trick or not, it made no difference. She was bound to die, even if she survived that long from what I had done to her. Eleven stabs, plus several tears. Who the hell can survive that without bleeding out?
I hurt someone far beyond what could be treated. I'm a murderer. I don't care 'bout a why or a who, I chose to cut someone's existence from this world and no person or miracle can ever make this go away. She won't live to see another day, and for all I know it could've easily been someone else. I should've seen this coming from a mile away, but no, I didn't── or I decided not to see it. Both Daniel and Teresa have seen the signs, and maybe some other people, too. I have issues, and these issues were what led me to this. I could've done something to prevent this from happening, but it's too late now. I refused to accept it, refused to get help, refused to battle it, refused to do anything but bottle it all away. All I needed was a slight push that Daniel's little sister was more than willing to provide.
For all I know, Jade was lying 'bout doing such a thing to my uncle and cousin. What if I misunderstood her behavior with me all along? Maybe all that she did was solely out of some unstable type of jealousy and not much more than that. Maybe I amplified the wild look in her eyes 'cuz I'm special, and not in a good way. Jade was rough, but was she really capable of doing the things I believed she did, like me; like what I just did? There's no proof, either; my uncle's death was ruled to be accidental within a week of his passing, and my grieving cousin has a strong head over her shoulders even if she's been a runaway for a while. Worst case scenario, I trust her to call my mom, or at least Teresa, if she ever needs us. All in all, Jade was a little girl── only sixteen. I would believe her if she ever admits to have only wanted to provoke me in a letter of some sorts found after this, or somewhere in a diary of hers or something. Sure, I may be three years older than her (almost four now), but I definitely know now that I'm not stable and simple things may set me off... she was definitely not like me. She had a nice life, a nice upbringing, nothing 'bout her family is odd── even if she beat me up, maybe she was just misunderstood or acting out on a teen tantrum.
My thoughts were interrupted by Daniel.
On his knees, he wrapped himself 'round me, pressing my head against his chest and squeezing me hard── real hard. Feeling not just my own but Daniel's crazy shivers, I felt tears burn the edges of my eyes. While squeezing him back, I unknowingly stained his pure, white shirt with his sister's blood 'til one of my dirty fingers looked right back at me with an aura of death all around it, and it only made the edges burn worse. He didn't even notice the staining, and if he did, he didn't care enough 'cuz he responded back to my squeezing by burying his head into my shoulders.
Why was he with me, holding me right there, barely a foot or five away from his dying sister? It's not right, not right at all. Why go to me, I killed her! Does he love me to the point where nobody else matters, is he capable of overlooking all of my wrongdoings? Is he genuinely obsessed with me? Wasn't I the only one in our relationship to be messed up in the head? ...and yet, his hold was all I wanted in that moment. I wanted to cower in shame and fear with him to hold my pieces together, to reassure me that maybe, just maybe, I could recover from all of this someday.
That's when I began to feel something out of this world, right on my shoulders as it drowned the pajamas in warm tears and mucus: my angel wept in the most agonizing form possible. His voice cracked every now and then, forcing him to choke on every sniffle that tried to escape out of him, but in between the cracks of his chords, a harrowing combination of a wheeze and a whimper tore apart my heart and continuously shoved its scraps deep into my subconscious, preparing them to strike me in my sleep for the next few weeks.
For every second that passed after I noticed his sobbing, it seemed to me as if the tears were not for me. They grew stronger and stronger, swaying me to caress his head and hold him and his pieces together. For every second that passed, I felt a tar-like substance pump directly into my heart, slowly and steadily replacing the broken life within me with something much more darker, something much more unsettling, dirty, horrifying. For every second that passed after I noticed his sobbing, his loose tears became heavier and heavier on my shoulder, coming in like a deadly hail on a foreboding night. Yes, this must be dread.
He was crying for himself, but why?
At first, I felt I had no idea, but looking back on some things, it all made sense. He's crying simply because he's in pain. Crying in pain because of me. I did this to him, and this isn't the first time he's done this either, but this time it's everything he had, all bursting out of the bottle after keeping it in for so long. He's cried other times in front of me, I just failed to process it before. He's in pain because he can't help me, because he saw it all escalating before his eyes without having the chance to stop it. He's crying because I'm going through all of this, unaware or unwilling to at least try to move on. He's crying because I'm allowing the monster within me to consume what we feel is me.
He's crying for the both of us.
How did I not see this before, and if I did, why didn't I take it more seriously? I've not just hurt Jade, Teresa, and I, but here lies Daniel as yet another victim of my actions, holding me tight, throwing himself onto me in desperation, revealing his concerns, fears, and vulnerabilities, letting it all out and unable to pick them all up. Why did it have to be now that I can see things so painfully clear? God, I have failed them all.
Right then and there, a thought I never dared to give existence to dropped itself onto me like a bomb on a densely populated city: seeing who I am now and who I have been for the past few years, do I really deserve him? Do I... do I deserve Daniel?
Is he too good for me?