Fairytale Gone Bad - {Synyster Gates - Book 2} -

Chapter 24

Katie’s POV

I woke up the next morning wondering what had happened. My back was hurting and I had a throbbing headache shooting in waves through my brain. With every muscle in my body aching I sat up from the cold bathroom floor, my eyes still closed. I leaned my head against the wooden cabinet, taking deep breaths to endure the throbbing in my temples. But when I wiped my hand over my eyes I noticed that they felt sticky and smelled weird.

As soon as I spotted the half dried blood on my fingers and palm I remembered everything from the day before. I remembered Michelle’s confession, the fight with Brian over the phone and the unbearable pain pulsing through my veins.

The bleeding might have stopped but the pain of losing my little baby was still running through every cell of my body. Tears were streaming down my blood smeared face. I probably looked like a surviving character from a horror movie but I couldn’t care less. Nothing of this mattered: My looks, the trashed house, the broken relationship to Brian. Nothing of this was important. Because the only reason that had the chance to pull me through this was gone. Dead. Ripped away from me.

I had nothing to live for anymore; nothing that could take my mind off of things. I didn’t feel like dying. Because I was already dead. A hollow shell sitting amongst the shattered pieces of a past life that was once so promising and full of happiness. But the grand plan for my life didn’t include happiness. Once I felt my heart dancing I could be sure that a moment later someone would trip it up, making it fall back to the dusty ground where it apparently belonged. Destined to be nothing but a pile of broken pieces of a dying flame, amongst shattered dreams, wishes and hopes.

Everything that had made me who I was, the sunshine in my heart, the deep and caring love I felt, my ambitions of a secure job and a happy family with Brian, it all had perished into ashes that were cast to the wind. My body was moving on, leaving my heart and soul behind in a hidden room deep down in the depths of myself.

Without thinking or feeling anything my body got up and stumbled to the tub. The blood loss had made him very weak but somehow he managed to drag himself into it to get cleaned up. The hot water was pure and clean, no soap was spoiling its cleansing virtue. My hands pulled off my dirty clothes and placed them next to the tub on the ground. They formed some sort of nest out of my shirt and after carefully pulling the shorts off they placed the small light pink ball into it.

Taking their time and with great care my hands washed my body with a soft wash cloth, cleaning it from any blood and traces of misery. The water turned pink and eventually a light red but my skin was once again clean but a little bit too pale. My hands moved to pay attention to my hair and rinsed it after applying only a tiny bit of shampoo.

When it was done my shaking legs carried my naked form to the bedroom where my hands clothed my body in my satin dressing gown. They towel dried my hair and applied some product to make it look healthy and shiny before turning back to the wardrobe. My body came to Brian’s side of the huge wooden room. My eyes gazed over the stacks of shirts, jeans, hats, his suits and dress shirts and pants. His scent crept up my nostrils, stirring a fading memory of cigarettes, cologne and heated skin. Lightly touching the fabrics of his clothes my mind tried to hold onto those pictures and memories but they were fading away, like mist on a cold morning in spring when the sun was about to rise over the shadows of the night.

Carefully balancing the white shirt with a black cross on its front my figure came back to the bathroom and knelt down in front of the bundle of my clothes and the little ball of flesh. It was so small with tiny arms and legs, even fingers and toes. And dark eyes, just the size of a pinhead. To anyone else it must have looked more like an alien but in my eyes is was the biggest and most incredible miracle. That was my baby. My little boy or girl.