desiderium | m. o'hara

eleven

TW: nonconsensual kiss, it gets a lil spicy (consensual), blood

I can't seem to look Miguel in the eyes.

It's not intentional. Not exactly. It's just that every time I see him, I'm reminded of the way I ogled him while he was working in his dark, brooding office. The way his suit sits upon him - the red contour designed to make him seem bigger than he already, more intimidating, dangerous - is engraved into the wriggles of my brain.

If he was my husband it would be a good thing. I'd admire the screenshot my mind's eye took to my heart's content and I'd enjoy it vehemently. I might even ask him to wear it just for me. Admire it in a more... hands-on approach.

But he isn't my husband, so it isn't a good thing.

Ergo, I avoid looking at him. I avoid looking at him like he's the Black Death returned and is contagious by eye contact alone. I avoid him because I genuinely don't know what else to do to circumvent these confusing emotions. Of course I'm attracted to him - he's Miguel. He's just not my Miguel, and my Miguel has only been in the grave for a little over a month.

I am desperately clinging onto my moral compass like a lifeboat, and the rest of my entire self is a raging ocean. My lifeboat is beginning to take on more and more water. Drowning is imminent.

Miguel notices my change in attitude immediately, which goes to show just how attentive he truly is. I can feel the heavy lingering of his gaze and the worry behind it when we're in the same room. I can feel it like a suffocating presence when we're alone in the car after dropping Rosalina off at school. I can feel it when we eat dinner and I can't look at him when I ask for the salt.

He keeps staring, decoding and decoding like I'm a strain of DNA he can't quite understand. I, continuously, dance my eyes away.

And every time I think of how attractive he is, or how sweet, or how everything he does is a direct resemblance to my Miguel and everything I first fell desperately, madly, helplessly in love with, my guilt grows. How can I think these things when my husband hasn't even been gone for all that long? Am I really that terrible? Am I that much of a horrible person?

I wish I could explain it to my Miguel, or get some of his classic, sarcastic O'Hara wisdom, or at least have him tell me that I'm not a bad person. I wish I could get some reassurance. I wish I could see his smile. I wish I could tell him I love him. That I miss him. That I miss him so much that it's slowly killing me.

I wish I could talk to him just one last time.

I wish I could drive up to his grave and bury myself beside him.

••🕷️••

"Do you hate dad?"

Rosalina's sudden question hits me so unaware that I splutter my sip of tea right back into my mug.

  We're eating colcannon without Miguel (Rosa and his favourite dinner) and despite my repeated attempts to start a conversation with my daughter, she'd been uncommunicative. At first I thought it was because she's upset that Miguel's missing, busy trying to catch another round of detected anomalies that's been spread across the wrong universes, but clearly his absence isn't what's been weighing on her mind.

I almost want to laugh at the absurd question, but the way she looks at me with her big, sad brown eyes and her scared pout, I stifle my amusement right back.

"What?" I stupidly ask, because I'm still so caught off-guard. "What makes you ask that?"

Rosalina shrugs and pushes her colcannon around with a fork. "Dad doesn't sleep with you, anymore. And you don't kiss."