AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Why did you lie to him?” she asks.
I was staring at the swirly patterns on the dark carpet but the minute she spoke my gaze flicked up to meet her eyes.
“It’s for the best.” I confess.
“How? Charlotte there’s not a lot of people who still feel the same way about each other after so long.”
“I just can’t Cordelia. I know everyone is so happy to see me and I want to feel the happiness and triumph at being back, but I can’t because there’s so much that happened to me and so much I still need to be afraid of.”
“Still?” She sounds worried.
I would love to confide in her about Tobias but I mustn’t say anything. Mustn’t talk or shit could happen.
Tobias likes to play games. He likes to play games. Loves playing chess, he always played it with Antonio. He calls himself the King. The black king and right now I could just be a piece on the board. A pawn maybe. They’re the weaker pieces, but I don’t have strength to even be a pawn. So I’m something else. I don’t know what, so yes there’s definitely cause for me to still be afraid.
“It’s a lot. I just can’t talk… not now.” It’s the same mantra I sold her. I can’t help it though. I can’t.
“I understand and I’m here when you need to talk. I’m here the way I should have been way back when you probably needed someone to talk to. I’m here and I’m going to tell you that you may have all of this stuff that happened to you, but it’s not happening today. It’s not happening right now and today is a different day than yesterday and tomorrow and the past. You decide what day you’re going to have. It’s how I got through cancer. Maybe it will help you by thinking that way.”
“How did you do it?” I ask.
“I just allowed myself to forget the shit and do what I would have wanted to do, not what the situation dictated to me. I separated my mind from the shit that was happening to me.”
I consider her words. There’s something about it that feels freeing, as freeing as I felt when I first saw the front door of the house and acknowledged that I made it back home.
I just don’t know if I can actually do what she’s telling me. It would take great mental strength I’m not sure I have.
Live for the day and forget all the fears of the past. All the fears that could be in the cards for me in the future.
It’s different when it comes to Gabe.
It’s different when it comes to him.
It always was.
Chapter Ten
Gabe
Limbo…
That’s what this is.
The place where I’ve been stuck all this time and people have been telling me I need to get out.
Fuck I’m an idiot for not listening.
My fault.
If there’s one thing I hate it’s weakness and I’ve made myself weak by dwelling on the woman I thought was mine.
I sound like a lovesick fool and I don’t know how I got this way especially when she hasn’t been in my life for a lifetime.
Fucking hell.
I’m so tense and pissed off with myself that I can’t even turn to the usual shit I grab when I get all worked up like this, a girl for the night and a few bottles of vintage wine should definitely do the trick. Except they won’t today.
I get home and I just sit by the fireplace looking at the mantel piece. I’ve never actually lit a fire in there and it seems a waste like the rest of the house. I think I bought the house in a pissing contest to show I could have a house just as big as my parents.
