Page 53 of Unholy

I look up at the painting on the wall and smile a little. It’s perfect. Just like him. A fallen angel who never got the chance to be more. And Tristan could have been a lot more.

“Hey.” Amy’s voice filters through my thoughts.

“Hi.”

“We need to talk,” she says as she comes to sit next to me, placing her hand on my knee. “The warehouse. Did you want to keep it for yourself?” she asks me.

“No.”

“I didn’t figure so. I don’t really want to sell it either,” she adds.

“I’ll burn it down.”

“What?” she asks, sounding confused. I look over at her and give her a sad smile.

“I’ll burn it down. You can collect the insurance money, and no one can ever live in there again,” I reply softly.

“Is that what you want?”

“Yeah. I don’t want anyone else in his space.”

“Your space. You shared that space with him, and I’ve never seen him as happy as he was then,” she adds.

“I was happy too,” I tell her as a tear slides down my cheek. I reach up and quickly wipe it away.

“He loved you, Ash.”

“I loved him. Every single broken piece of him.” She nods and wraps her arm around my shoulder, pulling me into her side.

“I can’t believe he’s actually gone. That man tempted death so many times it was unreal.” She lets out a little laugh, but it isn’t a happy one.

“You’re right. He did. I’m going to go and handle the warehouse. Did you want anything out of it?” I ask her. She shakes her head as I stand and grab one of Tristan’s bags, stuffing a lighter and matches just to be safe inside. I grab one of his hoodies and slip it over my head, smiling at Amy before I head for the steps.

When I get outside and climb in my car, I lose it. I scream, I cry, I bash on the steering wheel. The selfish bastard. He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to leave us the way he did. Leave me. How the hell could he have left me after everything that happened between us? Did he think I’d just recover from that?

Anger surges in my veins as I pull out and head to the warehouse. I’m mad now. More than mad.

It doesn’t take me long to reach the warehouse, climb out, and head inside. I glance around at everything. His work, his unfinished sculptures. The knife that’s stuck in the wall that he made me fuck. That one causes a smile to cross my face.

I had already donated his snakes to a children’s zoo, so I didn’t have to kill them or look at them.

I pull out the matches and light one, watching it flicker to life before tossing it at the wall. The dark curtains he had hanging immediately catch fire and I smile.

“You left me to this. You left me to do your fucking dirty work. You left me to clean up your fucking mess!” I scream as the fire climbs the walls.

“What did you think about when you jumped, Tristan? It sure as hell wasn’t about me!”

I flick another match to life and toss it across the room, watching all his shit burn.

When the smoke becomes too much for me to deal with and the coughing sets in, I head out of the warehouse and jump in my car. I drive down the block, far enough away no one will notice me, and then I park the car to watch it all go up in flames.

“You would have wanted it like this, right? Nothing left of the old life you lived? You never told me. You never told me what you wanted on the off chance you died. Then you went and did it yourself, you bastard.”

Now I laugh a little. Only Tristan could get me laughing like this about saying curse words.

How can you not call him what he was, though? Bastard. That’s what he was for leaving me, but deep down, he was so much more than that.

Tristan was a force to be reckoned with. He lived in a world all his own, and even right now, as his warehouse burns and tears spill down my cheeks, he’s no longer facing his demons; he’s living with them, thriving with them.

---