Page 15 of His Angel

I mourned my dad, sure, but it was a distant kind of sorrow, muted by the years of resentment I’d stacked between us. He cheated on Mom, tore our family apart, and I was left to deal with a man like Michele. So, when my dad was gone, I cried, but it was more for the idea of him, the father he never was, than for the man I lost. The pain didn’t shatter me. It didn’t consume me.

But now I get it. I understand that true loss isn’t sadness. It’s not tears and heartache. It’s a hollowing, a carving out of everything that once was, a void of memories that once brought you joy that now brings you anguish. Pain. It’s that pang when you taste something that sparks a memory, or a familiar song on the radio, and you realize you’ll never hear his laughter again. His voice. Or feel the comfort of his presence.

I lost Anthony. And somehow, it feels like I lost a part of me, too.

I’ve been on this island for days, weeks, months, years. There’s no way of telling because, to me, time has just stood still.

I haven’t left this room. I’ve barely eaten. I haven’t been able to get the image of Anthony’s blood out of my mind. Oddly enough, the only time I manage to be semi-alive is when Isaia walks in, when I look into his eyes and am reminded how much I love him.

But then reality knocks my soul out of my body, the reality that I love the man who killed my best friend. That, even after watching him pull the trigger, I still desire him. I still need him in ways I’ve never needed anyone. And that’s when the crushing guilt sets in, its icy fingers entwining around my heart, squeezing the warmth and life out of it until all that remains are shards of broken glass.

The worst part is, I don’t even blame Isaia. He held the gun. Pulled the trigger. But me? I’m the who loaded it. With a lie. With a mistake. By choosing to marry Anthony, I deceived my best friend and gave the man I love the bullet that killed him.

If I had told Anthony the truth, told him about Michele’s blackmail, my mom’s life hanging in the balance, maybe there could have been a way to change the outcome. Maybe there could have been a way for me to reach out to Isaia, explain to him what’s going on instead of having him make his own assumptions and declare Anthony the villain in our love story.

But I didn’t.

And now Anthony’s gone.

Because of me.

“Okay, that’s it.” Isaia storms in, lifts me off the couch, and throws me over his shoulder.

“What are you?—?”

“I’m done watching you sit in this room and waste away.” I’m trying to wiggle out of his grip as he carries me to the bathroom.

“Put me down.”

“You need a shower. And you need to get outside for some vitamin D and fresh air.”

“I don’t?—”

He sets me down on my feet, hands on my shoulders, pinning me with his dark gaze. “Shower. Sun. Air. And a fucking drink. In that order. Besides,” he steps back, “I have a surprise for you.”

“Isaia, I really don’t?—”

“Shush.” He presses his finger against my lips, and there’s a flicker of heat that stirs between us. “I gave you time. I gave you space. Now I’m drawing a line in the sand and saying enough is enough. You have thirty minutes before I haul your ass out of here.”

He doesn’t give me a chance to respond and closes the door behind him. It’s when I see my reflection in the mirror that I get a healthy dose of reality. My eyes are hollow, framed with deep, dark circles. My skin is pale as a ghost and my hair a completely tangled mess. I look terrible.

Reluctantly, I step into the shower. The cascading drops of warm water feel heavy on my frail body, yet soothing at the same time. Each drop washes away a fragment of the pain I harbor, taking with it a part of my guilt and self-pity.

What’s done is done.

There is nothing I can do that’ll change anything. Nothing can take me back in time so I can do things differently. It is what it is. And while grief can keep you captive within the past, the world around you doesn’t stop turning.

The shower scrubbed away the sweat and the sticky mess of him, but it can’t wash out the ache still gnawing at my bones. I’m not sure what to do with the chaos still raging inside me. Should I try to smother it? Or let it burn me alive?

It comes in bursts of guilt, moments where I forget how to breathe. Anthony wasn’t supposed to die—especially not because of me. Now there’s this deep, hollow emptiness that I’m not sure what to do with.

I’m dressed in a dusty pink sundress, the fabric light against my thighs, soft where my skin’s still tender from Isaia’s hands. It’s sleeveless, loose, fluttering with every step, and the pale color makes me look fragile in the mirror—like I’m not carrying blood and lies beneath it.

My damp hair sticks to my shoulders, curling at the ends, and I shake it out, padding barefoot into the room.

Sunlight floods through a wall of glass—the wall Isaia fucked me against. The air’s thick with salt, warm and lazy, drifting in from an open window. It’s a bedroom, sparse but sharp, with dark wood floors, a bed with rumpled white sheets. Isaia’s scent lingers everywhere, black pepper and primal musk, like he’s stitched into the walls of this place.

Maybe he’s stitched into me.

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