I Would Kill For You

29. Love Equals Pain

❝ one thing you can't hide - is when you're crippled inside. ❞

john lennon

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This chapter is dedicated to all the strong people who have suffered a great deal but still manage to smile everyday despite the pain. You are the heroes of your own life. ❤

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One day before Damian's departure

Damian's POV

"What's wrong with you?"

The silence was disrupted by my father's insensitive question. It was only the afternoon, but I knew that he had already downed a bottle of Whisky, judging by his slightly more aggressive tone than usual and his bluntness. I could only guess that he had a fight with my mother, who was absent from our "family" lunch. That was the only good thing that happened since she came home.

Joseph scrutinized me intently, but I ignored him, and replied harshly:

"Nothing that concerns you."

"So you can talk. What a pity." he laughed at his own mediocre joke, making Joseph squirm uncomfortably in his chair. He cleared his throat a moment later as if he had realized that he was the only one who found it funny. "Lighten up, will you? What happened?"

"Can you just...shut up?" I snapped at my father, glowering at him. 

He gave me a reproachful stare and retorted:

"It's because of your little girlfriend, isn't it? Rosabel? Did she run off with that rich blonde lad, Devon?"

Just hearing her name hurt. It was like a paper cut: a small laceration on my skin that seemed insignificant, until you realized that there were thousands of them on your body, each representing every time you thought about her, dreamt about her, and now, heard about her.

For God's Sake, there is no love! I never loved you and I never will!

I wish she'd have done that. Betrayal would have been much easier to survive. But this? How could I survive this?

I couldn't be any longer with this man in the same room without feeling the overwhelming desire to punch him. The only thing that stopped me was the voice of reason in my head that reminded me that he was my father. I pushed the chair back and got up.

"Where do you think you're going? You haven't even touched the food."

"Wouldn't be the first time." I countered, leaving. I didn't want to be in this house; I felt the walls closing in on me and suffocating me. I got out, not even bothering to grab my coat. The cold, sharp wind penetrated my bones, but I didn't mind it.

I felt strange. Time seemed to pass by me, slipping through my fingers, but I remained the same, still hurting, still befuddled, still trying to process everything that had happened. I couldn't get Gabrielle's suicide note out of my head. I couldn't sleep at night -- I spent the majority of it thinking about her, and the other half of the time I was torturing myself by thinking about Rosabel. Oh, the irony: I enjoyed that torture. I enjoyed that pain.