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“Just let me die.”
“No.”
“Why is it always no?” he suddenly roared, his bloodshot eyes wide and glassy. “Why? Just let me fucking die already.”
The sheer desperation in his voice took the strength from my legs, and I sank down to my knees beside him. “Because they love you.”
“If they loved me, they would let me be with Jason. I miss him…fuck, every second of every minute of every day, I ache to hold him just one more time.”
I reached out and gripped his hand with my own, tears pouring down my face as my nose burned. Sometimes, you can’t say anything to make it better. Sometimes the only thing you can do is let them know they aren’t alone. At first, he tried to pull away, but after a moment, he turned his hand so our fingers laced together. His breath came out in choking sobs as he curled in on himself, and I wiped the back of my arm across my face, wishing I could do something to make it better.
“I’m sure you’ll see your wife and son in heaven.”
He let out a mad cackle then, one that had goosebumps breaking out on my arms. “That puta is burning in hell.”
What the heck did I say to that?
He glared at me through swollen eyes, the flicker of madness now a full out roar of flames. “I hope she spends every minute in unending pain. I hope she’s spends eternity burning for her sins. You should hate her, too. She’s the reason you’re a sheep.”
“I-I don’t understand,” I leaned back, my mouth dry as I stared at him.
“They only told you lies,” he hissed. He grabbed my hand again and squeezed it so hard it hurt. “The truth is he died because of her.”
I blinked a couple times, my brain officially shorting out from a combination of fear and confusion. With a yelp of pain, I jerked my hand away and clutched it to my chest as tears clogged my throat. Fernando had pushed himself up by this point, his handsome features stretched tight with anger. I was suddenly aware of what a vulnerable position I was in, how much bigger he was than me, and fear soured my stomach as I gracelessly scrambled away from him like a crab until I got to my feet. Putting the couch between us, I held my hands out.
“Please, don’t hurt me.”
I didn’t mean to say that, but panic was eroding my usual self-control. I hated how I could feel my body gearing up to freak out. Normally, I’m good in situations like this, could defuse tension and regain control, but my faith in myself had been broken by my attacker’s fists. Now, I feared a shattered man too drunk to even stand straight. Frowning, he held out his hand and took an unsteady step in my direction.
“I would never hurt a woman.” His grin turned malicious, and I shuddered. “Wait, I’d kill my fucking dead wife over and over again, if I could. Wish my mom had waited. Would have loved to slit her throat myself.”
“Leave me alone,” I screamed, terrified by his drunk and stoned homicidal ramblings.
He staggered back like I’d slapped him, banging into a lovely table and sending the lamp on it tumbling to the ground with an angry crash, the blown glass base shattering against the stone floors in a spray of bronze and turquoise shards.
“Fuck,” he sank down to his knees and started trying to gather the pieces of glass while his head bobbed and weaved.
The thought ‘he could hurt himself’ managed to penetrate the fear devouring my mind, and I moved to stop him before he hurt himself.
I was too late. By the time I reached him, he’d sliced his finger good.
Blood dripped onto the carpet in steady drops, making my stomach churn.
Fernando didn’t seem to notice the wound, and kept trying to clean the glass up.
“Stop,” I shouted, then grabbed his hand. “Shit, Fernando, you really hurt yourself. Shit, shit, shit. It’s bleeding pretty bad. I think you need stitches.”
He turned melancholy eyes to me, and I saw that once again I was dealing with the gentle, broken Mr. Hyde side of his split personality instead of the insane and raging Dr. Jekyll. “Let me die.”
“Oh, for fucks sake, we’re back to this again?” I huffed as I pulled him away from the mess, elevating his hand while drag walking him over to a nearby chair. “Look, let’s save another tedious round of woe is me and keep you from bleeding all over your mom’s stuff.”
He grunted then slurred, “She hates that.”
“I don’t blame her. And you got blood on this crazy expensive dress that Ramón got me. Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of this kind of fabric? Might as well turn it into an eight-hundred-dollar cleaning rag now, because I look like I played the part of ‘Carrie’ in my high school’s musical.”
