Enamored | ✓

6. Guilt

"Maybe there's more we all could have done, but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time."

― Veronica Roth

The gnawing guilt in my stomach woke me. Clouds of disorientation and remorse floated over me as my heart beat irregularly from the loss of adrenaline. Tears blurred my vision of amber and onyx as tingles crept its way from my forehead, down my spine, to my fingertips as an unknown force held a tight grip on my neck bringing me closer to Death's Door. This sensation was unfamiliar; a nervous breakdown.

Celeste Beaumont never broke under pressure.

Until now.

I was weaker now that Daemon has laid his dark mark into my soul. I didn't know the reason of his motives and I honestly didn't want to figure it out, but knowing will give me and my friends an advantage in this morbid game of his. He threatened my friends and my family, the people I loved the most in this world. I had no choice. Our past encounters had left me shockingly calm, that now I'm suffering the aftermath.

Rough warm hands caught my chilled ones and Angelo's face was the first thing I saw as I rose from my bed. Since when did he get here?

As if reading my mind, he replied. "Ted called, I came as soon as I can."

"You've been having nightmares again." He added.

They weren't nightmares. They were real. I wished these nightmares would only stay in the dream world. Instead, an image of Daemon's raw icy gaze, my wish, and the heart piercing screams of my friends; a reminder of what I have done caused a stubborn tear to escape my eye.

"Where were you when I needed you?" I whispered my voice hoarse.

Angelo's eyes met mine. "I'm sorry." He remained silent after that.

I cursed myself for appearing weak, but after what happened with Daemon, I could no longer put up this façade of calm and strength. Pushing myself off the bed and sitting up, I whispered, "I had no choice." Then I spilled everything. The first time I met Daemon, the apples, and my wish that doomed Brittany, Ted, Daniel, Summer, and I to play Daemon's game. Angelo embraced me, stifling the sobs that wracked my chest. Everything I was saying didn't make sense, yet he whispered comforting words that everything will be alright.

Once I calmed down, Summer, Ted, and Daniel sat together at the foot of my bed while Brittany sat on the small worn couch across my bed, her legs crossed. All of them reminded me of lifeless paper dolls crumpled in exhaustion. Their screams of agony, the desperation of their voices were evident from the weary eyes that gazed at me rimmed with red bags underneath.

"He knows all of our darkest fears, Celeste," Ted murmured as he stared down on his hands.

Summer wept silently as Ted wrapped his arms around her while rubbing her back up and down. Brittany rolled her eyes and sauntered her way towards me.

"It was all your fault." Brittany said her voice slightly above a whisper.

Her doll like face was marred with the wrinkles her frown caused. Rage seethed within her brown eyes.

Unbelievable.

How could she put all of the blame on me?

Still leaning on Angelo's shoulder I mustered all the strength left inside of me to answer her.

"I warned you not to eat those apples."

"It was you who brought them here in the first place!" Brittany replied, her voice rising.