Page 50 of Love Sick

“She could have told Misha the truth,” Alanna replies, but there’s no bite to her tone. “She knew how determined he was and that sooner or later, he would find out any way he could.”

I don’t like what she’s implying.

“That doesn’t give you the right to play God!” I snap, shaking my head. “You’ve hurt so many people, and for what?”

Her eyes turn poignant as she smiles. “For love.”

Her response has the rage simmering because there are no rules when it comes to love. But what she’s done, she’s hurt the onesIlove. So what’s the acceptable punishment all in the name of love?

“How did Jonathan die?” I ask again because I know she was the reason behind it.

She stares into the fire, almost transfixed by it. “Everything you know is true. He played piano. He had a bad heart. He was Misha’s father. And he was a philandering bastard who was still in love with Luna. She was the one who got away for him and his entire life, he was searching for that love again. I believed him when he told me he loved me. But what kind of man loves like that? Says he loves one woman while he fucks another?”

“Joy?”

She nods, her head bowed. “It was supposed to be her driving, not him.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was her car, but he was the one who was driving that night. I didn’t mean for it to be him. The engine of a car is so similar to that of the insides of a human being. It didn’t take much. A cutting of a single wire can cause so much harm. So, it was poetic justice, really, that that bitch did the same thing to Misha; the personsheloved.”

Oh my fucking god.

Alanna wanted to eradicate Joy from the picture, but instead, Jonathan was the one behind the wheel, setting the stage for what his son was soon to endure. Alanna used her mistake as a blueprint for Joy.

This shit just gets worse.

“You may have loved Jonathan,” I say with a sigh. “But the only person he loved was himself. Both you and Joy were fighting for his love, blaming Luna, but she never wanted his love. Jonathan is the monster because if he loved you, he wouldn’t have been fucking Joy. Or pining after a woman who didn’t want him.”

I can’t believe this entire thing all comes down to one thing—love.

Love, in the most twisted, macabre sense, but love nonetheless.

Alanna trembles, her tears robbing her of words and breath.

“So this is why you tried so hard to ‘resurrect’ him? ’Cause of guilt.”

She doesn’t need to reply. I know the answer.

“We’re all guilty of something, Dutch.”

Her statement doesn’t carry any blame, merely fact because I too am guilty. I betrayed Luna when I handed her back over to Parkfields, believing she was a monster when I should have listened to my heart.

I did it in the name of love because I thought I was helping her.

But I shake my head firmly because I’m not the same as Alanna.

I’m not.

I think of Joy and the satisfaction I felt when she took her last breath. I also didthatin the name of love. I then think about slipping my hands around Alanna’s neck and choking the life from her for everything she’s done to Luna.

And I do that…in the name of love.

Realization hits me and I grip onto the crutches, afraid of the truth which is staring me straight in the eye.

“I know I can never bring Jonathan back, but it was nice to pretend for a little while,” Alanna whispers, reaching for something at her feet. “It was nice because I didn’t have to face what I had done. That I was the reason he died. I killed the man I loved and I’ll have to live with that on my conscience for the rest of my life.”

The thing she reached for is her wedding dress, the dress which she tosses into the fire, stone-faced because she realizes it’s over.

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