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1Rafaelo
"You can't continue like this, Raf," Carlos reproaches from the other end of the line.
"And what do you suppose I do?" I ask drily. "Try finding out your wife might be a psychopath who birthed your child without you knowing. A child that is no longer alive," I add pointedly, anguish lodging in my throat anew at the thought of that poor little soul who never got the chance to live.
"That's what Lucero said. You forget it was Michele who brought her in to confess. I would take everything she says with a grain of salt."
"Maybe I would have. If I didn't catch Noelle in Ortega's room, his blood would be all over her. Maybe I would have, if she didn't confirm it with her own fucking mouth, Carlos. She admitted it to my face. That it was my child who died. That…" I trail off as I take a deep gulp of air.
Already, I feel myself getting worked up as I remember the events from five days ago.
To think that I've been living with a stranger this whole time…
But that's the thing, isn't it? She fooled us all.
Even I, who I thought knew her best, knew her least.
God, but how could she have looked into my eyes and lie to me like that?
Every time we talked about her memories, she would give me one of her sweet smiles, assuring me I would be the first to know when she remembered.
Joke's on me, isn't it?
While I was wishing her memory would never come back so she wouldn't suffer the repercussions of it, she must have been laughing at me while remembering everything.
"But did you listen to her entire explanation? Did you hear the whole story?" He continues, pushing me into a corner because…I hadn't.
I'd been so angry that I'd simply shut her out after I'd gotten her confession. And for almost a week now, I've barely seen her.
Closed off in my office, I've slept and eaten here—anything so I don't come face to face with her.
How the hell could she have acted so innocent when I'd told her about my recent flashback about a woman raping me? How could she have assured me it was all a dream when it had been her. All along, it had been her.
Fuck… How the hell did she fool everyone?
Slowly, Cisco's little clues and ominous warnings come to mind, and I realize he'd known all along. Maybe not all the details, but he'd known her.
Suddenly, a lot of things are starting to make sense. Most of all the fact that Cisco may not have been the tyrannical older brother I'd believed him to be.
"I'll talk to you later," I tell Carlos, closing before offering a reply to his previous question. Hanging up, I toss my phone on my desk, and I bring my fingers to my temples, slowly massaging them.
Do I want answers? Yes. Do I trust myself to be in the same room as Noelle without strangling her? Debatable.
At some point, I know I'll have to confront her and have everything out in the open. But not now. Not when my wounds are still raw and bleeding, reopened after so many years.
I'd thought the hacienda was the most dehumanizing experience there could be, and after suffering Armand for a few months, that's saying something. But to hear that it had been even more than I remembered? That not only had I been exploited physically through forced labor and drained emotionally with those drug-induced comas, but that I'd also been assaulted by the woman I loved most in the world?
And I'd loved her at that time too.
A sardonic smile pulls at my lips as I imagine how she must have done it. During the day she'd come to me, pretending to be my friend and forbidden love, sharing her soul with me—if any of that was even true—while at night she'd simply take advantage of me to fulfill some sick perversions.
Yet the questions abound.
Why?
Had it been a mere sexual perversion, or has she purposefully used me as her drug-addled stallion?
Days of ruminating over this matter and I cannot make any sense of…anything. And it's all because I don't know this, Noelle. I don't know this woman, who by all rights is my wife, yet is nothing more than a stranger.
