Page 246 of Obsession

I pressed my lips together and stopped trying to hold back my tears. Seeing him like this, realizing what his life really was,hurt me more than I thought it would. He took the hand I had placed on his shoulder, brought it to his lips and kissed my fingers while his gaze remained fixed on the grave.

Some time ago I had imagined what demons looked like when they were suffering, what an overwhelming, heart-shattering image that must be.

Now I had one in front of me.

If fallen angels ever wept at the grave of those they had lost, I was sure they looked like Harris did at that moment.

It was impossible to look at him without feeling his pain, the void in his soul. It was impossible not to be swallowed up by what his face expressed, by the anguish in his eyes. Sobbing was unnecessary, a few tears were enough to show everything.

“What happened?” I finally asked, although I wasn’t sure if he could speak.

Harris took a deep breath and closed his eyes tightly as he searched for words.

“She was diagnosed with leukemia seven years ago.”

I squeezed his hand reassuringly.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, not knowing what else to say.

“She didn’t tell me. She preferred to hide it from me until she couldn’t,” he continued, and I wondered why he was only talking about himself. Where was his father?

“My mother… was… a woman full of light and kindness,” I sensed how much it hurt him to speak of her in the past tense, “Even when the illness took over and she was forced to tell me, she smiled.”

I let out a bitter whimper; he could no longer hold back the tears that ran down his cheeks one after the other.

“After two years of fighting, she left me!” he cried, then lifted his head and sighed deeply “I wasn’t always like this, Katherine. I used to be a good kid; I liked art and music; I took after her. I did everything I could to see my mother happy. Shewas my sunshine, my reason for living in a world where no one else loved me.”

He gritted his teeth, his face contorted in pain, his breathing heavy from the memories.

“What about your father?” I asked cautiously.

The look of pain on his face quickly turned to hatred.

“I don’t have one!” he declared with shocking vehemence.

I bit my lip, continuing to look at him and waiting for him to clarify his statement.

“She was raped three days before her eighteenth birthday.” His gaze drifted to the grave while my breath caught in my throat and I instinctively clutched his hand tighter. “She got pregnant, but her parents didn’t want her to keep the pregnancy. Her father was a prosecutor at the time and he wanted her to abort the bastard she was carrying. He was already ashamed that his daughter had been raped, so he couldn’t let her give birth to that wanker’s son. She refused to have an abortion, she even ran away from home so she wouldn’t have to kill me, even if I was a curse born out of hatred and ridicule.”

He rubbed his temples.

“Harris, don’t say things like that …”

I tried to reassure him, wiping the warm tears from his cheeks, but honestly, I didn’t know what else to say. What else could you say at a time like this? I would have taken all his pain on myself if I could have.

The wind had died down around us, but small raindrops were falling from the sky. He could no longer control his emotions as pain and grief flooded him, his features increasingly obscured by the darkness that wrapped itself around him like a protective cloak, like a faithful ally covering his suffering.

I never thought I would see him like this, so weakened and vulnerable, so unmistakably pained. My family problemsseemed insipid at that moment. No, they did not seem, they were.

“She never hid the truth from me; she knew I would find out sooner or later. Nevertheless, she never spoke with pain about her breakdown. Sometimes I had the impression that she loved the motherfucker. She always told me that she didn’t regret that night because that’s how she got me. She kept telling me that I was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t find a lie in her words. Even I hated myself for who I was, for the fact that my mother had to leave her parents and take the reins at an age when most girls see nothing but boys, fun and popularity. She had to raise her curse alone because her parents just wanted to get rid of me, especially her father, who tried to take me away from her in the beginning and put me in an orphanage. She was supposed to go to college, she couldn’t be left alone to raise her wolf pup, as Johnatan – my grandfather – called me. And I understood him. I was a curse, a damnation that ruled her life. She needed to build a future for herself and not be stuck in her life raising me.”

I closed my eyes and felt my heart breaking inside me. The raindrops stuck to my skin and mixed with my tears as I hugged him and put my cheek against his neck to soothe him.

“Harris, you were a blessing, not a curse. Your mom knew that.”

He snorted bitterly.

“She never wanted to talk about that night, but Johnatan wanted to ruin me by any means necessary, and one day he made me read the statement my mother gave after the rape,” his face contorted into another mask of grief, “Every time I close my eyes, I see her words, written quickly and with shaky hands on that white piece of paper. That paper told of the destruction of her life.”

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