The Darkness Of Healing // Ruel // English

Chapter 23

Nola has made an appointment to visit Austin. We together. I don't even know if I dare to step inside. Dare to face him. But somehow it feels like my responsibility to know if he's still okay. Oh Ruel what have you done to my heart? In moments like this I had hoped it was still cold and rock-hard, not gentle and caring. Austin doesn't deserve it, he put me through hell. Why not let the same thing happen to him now? He was a part of my childhood after all. One I'd rather forget. Yet there is always a part of me that wants to soften that time, put a bandage on the wounds. Sign a peace contract that I know will never come anyway. I'll have to do my best to show my tough skin to him. I can be weak, but not in front of him. There he got his way, he created a soldier. They also have a big heart inside, but they have to behave tough. Pretend it doesn't matter to them when someone gets shot in front of them. Ultimately, they fight for peace and security.

Yasmine: "Have you visited him before?" I ask Nola nervously as I walk into her room after freshening up. I just found out how much damage last night actually did. How much that running has damaged my feet. How badly my skin was damaged when I was knocked out on the stone stairs, I couldn't even feel it anymore. I do think it will heal quickly, it has been through worse things.

Nola sits up and offers me to sit with her on the bed.

Nola: "Twice."

She gently takes my hand in my lap when you see me twisting my rings on my fingers and looking down at my lap.

Nola: "He can't attack you. He's on the other side of the wall and you can hang up the phone anytime and walk away. You're surrounded by police, you'll be fine."

My mind thinks otherwise. How does he keep making me so scared?

He gets it right every time. Making my heart beat on a level that is getting more and more powerful. You'd think I could get it under control after all these years, but I'm not. It's my head I can keep more cool, not my body. I'm lucky he can't see my leg going up and down. That he can't see me running my nails along the grooves in my fingers under the table.

It's almost empty in here. How you would imagine visiting hour in a prison. Just the minimum where necessary. There is just a plant in the corner of the room, the side where visitors can sit. The air conditioning is much high, goosebumps are on my arms while the walls of my body inside would be sweating. A shiver runs down my spine.

A few meters away I see an adult woman with a newborn baby in her arms. The child tries to reach for his father, stretches out his hands to get closer, but is stopped by the glass that offers as a partition. It's painful to watch. I'd be lying if I said I don't see the tears in her eyes. Lying if I didn't see how much it hurts her to sit across from her husband like that. Maybe she's been doing it for a really long time, maybe just recently. I have no idea what kind of world they are in a few feet away from me. It is the individual souls that I would know nothing about. Which I can't get my head around. I wouldn't want it. Although I would like to have the gift to take away pain and sadness when it is just too heavy on the shoulders.

I turn my head back to my father opposite me. I have to be honest, Austin looks awful. The bags under his eyes say he hasn't slept in ages, didn't even bother to shave that beard off him. The gray hairs are mixed with the brown natural color.

With difficulty I swallow the lump from my throat when I hear Nola and Austin having a conversation in my ear. Afraid to add myself. So I just sit there, lost in fear that I don't want to feel. Why did I want to come here? I don't even dare to ask the only question I came for.

It all happens so easily between those two, the conversations, the whole chemistry is different. It's warmer, more loveable. With me it is cold, murderous. It will most likely leave its imprints. How can it not be like this between them? What did I do wrong? I can now put 'my biggest regret' for his statement somewhere. I've never really been wanted. Not anywhere. I was only wanted as a victim.