“You know, for a smart fucking girl you haven’t been paying attention. This is who I am. I get drunk and fuck whores, not little girls.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “So, this is how it’s going to be now? Why? Because you love me? So what? You have to push me away? Oh, come on, Damien, I’m a hell of a lot smarter than that.”
“Don’t confuse lust for love, Amira. I was drunk, you were here. It was one kiss that did nothing for my cock. Now you all of a sudden think I’m in love with you? Don’t be so fucking naive, little girl. You should be thanking me for giving you your first introduction to men. Not giving me shit for it.”
I scoffed, stunned by the situation that he was doing this to me again. “You know what? I don’t have to stand here and take this. You do whatever you need to do to cool off. When you’re ready to really talk about what’s happening between us, you know where I am.” I shoved past him, wanting to get out of there and away from him as fast as possible. Knowing this would blow over as soon as he realized how he’d treated me. He just needed more time to reflect on our future.
Right when I had almost fully passed him, he grabbed my arm. Turning me to look at him. He calmly vowed, “We can’t talk about what’s not real.”
I yanked my arm out of his grasp and stormed down the hallway. One way or another after last night with him forcing me on the boat, me showing up at his apartment, then the kiss, and everything else in between. It would change our relationship, proving it that morning. I didn’t realize until days, weeks, months later that all I did that morning by leaving him was exactly what he wanted me to do in the first place.
I played right into the hand of cards he dealt me.
In exactly one year’s time, since the night of our kiss, everything had shifted. Taking on a course of its own. Nothing would ever be the same again, and I wished I would’ve known that the next morning. I could’ve been more prepared for what was to come.
But I wasn’t.
I never was with him.
Damien started to work more, and I saw him less and less as the months flew by. There were times I wouldn’t see him for weeks on end, showing up sporadically, and never as the man I was in love with. He barely said more than a few words to me, if that. He didn’t take the time to talk to me about life, never asked me about my day, and he quit practicing all the languages and assignments I struggled with.
Nothing.
At first, I continued placing random things in his belongings, and every time he returned Yuly it gave me hope that maybe he would make his way back to me. Then out of nowhere, he didn’t return her. Breaking any connection with us. Most of the time, I wondered why he even bothered to stop by Mama Rosa’s. Other than to eat some food and leave shortly after. He completely shut me out of his life. I couldn’t even look in his eyes anymore. All that stared back at me were vacant, dark pools of the man who once saved me. He stopped communicating where he was going and when he’d return. Leaving me to sit in my reading nook worried, contemplating if he was dead or alive. Staring aimlessly out the window, hoping at any second one of the passing cars would be his.
But he never came.
I no longer made him laugh or smile. I’d tried to tease him, hoping he would let me in. Put his hands on me and make me feel like I was whole again. However, he barely glanced my way, as if I was nothing but a burden to him. Reminding me of the time he admitted that I was. I had no idea who this man was anymore, and maybe I never had.
Which was the hardest confession I admitted to myself.
My nightmares started to resurface again, except they were different. It wasn’t Emilio’s or his men, or even his father’s faces that tormented me. Mixing along with my family’s desperate pleas to save them.
It was Damien’s.
Just like in the land of the living, he would stand there. Not paying me any mind, letting them torture me, grab me, and take me to the depths of Hell with them. The images became so real, so vivid, so alive… To the point that Mama Rosa couldn’t wake me, no matter how hard she tried. My night terrors had taken over, and I barely slept more than a few hours every night. It was easier to stare up at the ceiling than it was to close my eyes, surrendering to the darkness that had become my daily life. Versus the one’s in my nightmares.
I no longer had any peace.
Damien had stolen it.
I missed him. I missed him so much it hurt to think about all those years where he was my one and only. As the months went on, more questions, more what if’s, more regrets and mistakes made themselves known. Surfacing deep within my heart.
Should I have stayed on the boat?
Would we have met again later in life and been happy?
Should I have not kissed him?
My thoughts ruthlessly weighed on my mind, sending me spiraling down a staircase to Hell. Where the devil welcomed me with open arms. The same purgatory Damien spent years trying to protect me from was the same one he exiled me to solely by himself.
The irony was not lost on me.
See, Damien knew I could battle his anger, the brutality of his words, aware that I wasn’t intimidated or scared of him. But I couldn’t fight for what wasn’t there.
His silence.
His coldness.
His distant hollowness.
Were all weapons I had no artillery for.
Like the little girl he probably still thought I was, I held onto the hope that today would be different. That he wouldn’t do this to me. Not after everything he had done to destroy my heart, or the stuff he was still putting me through. He always made sure to be there for my birthday, giving me the best gifts, the most attention. Showing me that I mattered to someone.
To him.
It was my sixteenth birthday, and I waited all day for him. Praying that he would show up for me, knowing how important it was to have him there by my side. I didn’t think he’d be this cruel. It didn’t help my situation that one year ago today triggered the drastic change in him. I couldn’t just mope around and continue to feel this way. I needed answers, and I needed them right now.
I took a cab down to his University. It was the only place that seemed to occupy all his time from before. It was a long shot, but what other choice did I have? I took my chance that he’d be there.
I sat in the backseat wringing my fingers together, rehearsing what I wanted to say to him in my head. Picturing better times when he’d come over and we’d talk about his classes for hours, filling me in on all the interesting material he had learned. Always so adamant that I would go to college too.