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Life is a funny thing. For the majority of my life, I watched the world through rose-colored lenses, only to have everything burn around me. I was gifted a name that opened doors. I was handed money and power. But it was all for a price.

Evil didn't have boundaries. It didn't have morals or ethics or feelings. Evil could wear a smile. It could sit next to you at dinner and give you a hug on your birthday. Evil could come in the form of family.

That evil had taken everything from me. My childhood. My mother. Vega. All of it was gone because of the man I had once called father. Sadness and despair had a new meaning. I thought I knew pain, but I was wrong.

“I'm sorry, there's nothing more we can do.”Those are the words that kept replaying in my head.

I refused to take that as an answer. Nothing was final. The doctor had left me alone with Vega's body. He was on the table, his arms at his sides, eyes closed. He looked peaceful. As if he were just asleep.

God, I wanted him to just be asleep. I wanted him to blink his eyes open, sit up, and hug me. But I knew that was never going to happen. My father had taken the very last thing in my life that had any meaning. He couldn't help himself. At the end of my father's life, he was still able to steal from me.

I reached out and softly brushed the side of Vega's face with the back of my hand. His skin was cool to the touch. “I'm so sorry,” I said quietly. “I'm so fucking sorry, Vega. This is all my fault.”

The stab wound was throbbing, but it wasn't as bad as it looked. The knife my father used was only a few inches long. Hedidn't hit any major organs. I just needed the area cleaned and a few stitches. Vega had paid the ultimate price. Not me. I got out basically unscathed.

My fingers traced his eyebrows and down the bridge of his nose. I ran my fingers through his hair and over the shell of his ear. Vega was still. Silent. And yet I could feel him. I felt his presence and his warmth. I felt his arms around me. I felt his skin against my skin. I felt his lips on the back of my neck.

“I can't do this without you,” I said. “I don't know how.”

I could hear his voice inside my head.“This was how it was always going to end. God had a plan. This was his plan. None of this is your fault.”

Tears streamed down my face. “It's not fair.”

“Life isn't fair, Red. But this is the hand we were dealt. Now, go live the life you deserve.”

I wiped my eyes as I swallowed every bit of sadness and tried to be strong. “I don't want to live a life without you.”

A warm breeze circled my ankles and then moved up my legs. It wrapped me like Vega was holding me tightly.“You'll never be without me. A piece of me will be with you forever.”The warm air tickled my ribs and then danced over my belly.

Then it was gone. Vega was gone. Whatever piece of him that had stayed behind was now released. I felt the weight in the room lighten, and the air grew cold. I cried hard. I let out all the sadness with a flood of tears.

I stormed out of the room. Throwing the double doors open, I slammed my shoulder into one of the nurses. I didn't stop to apologize. I just kept going. The police were waiting for me in the lobby, but I put my head down and walked right past them. I was done.

None of this was fair. Why did it always seem like I was the one losing? How could I live any kind of life when everything I loved had been taken from me? What purpose did I serve?

I thought about killing myself. It was a brief flicker of a thought, but it crossed my mind. After what I had been through, it didn't seem strange. It almost felt reasonable. But it didn't get any headway and remained a dark thought that just flashed through my head. I wasn't going to kill myself. That would mean my father had won. He wasn't going to win.

Instead, it felt like more of a fuck you to my father if I lived a long life. He probably didn't really care either way, but it gave me something to focus on. Live happily and let my father suffer in hell.

It wasn't until Vega's funeral that I learned what kind of man he had been. He was a giver. He donated to charities and spent time at the public pool, giving kids free swimming lessons. He paid for two homeless shelters to be built and worked at the food bank in his free time. The number of people who came out to pay respects was unbelievable.

I think he tried to make up for all his own darkness. Every sin he had, he tried to cancel out with something good. He lived his life on a scale that he tried to keep balanced. There were laughs and tears the day he was buried. I truly saw Vega, the man.

If you could describe a funeral as beautiful, his was. Flowers were everywhere, and his casket was rich mahogany with gold fittings. As it turned out, Vega had already paid for his entire funeral. He knew that he lived a high-risk life, and he knew that it could be cut drastically short.

He acted like a man of the night, a wolf who descended into the darkness and was only seen as a shadow. But he was so much more than that. He was a light, a beacon of hope. He was everything.

I tossed a small handful of dirt onto his casket in the grave. His headstone was made of black granite. His name was chiseled onto the front with swooping calligraphy and Roman numeralsfor dates. It was fitting and stuck out like a sore thumb in the field of brighter headstones.

The crowd of people dispersed. I was left alone, staring into the hole at a box partially covered with dirt. I didn't know where I was going to go after all this. It had only been a few weeks, and I felt utterly lost.

What was this pain? What was this hurt? What was this feeling that had a death grip on my soul?

It was love—love for a man I only knew for a short amount of time, love for a man who only knew my sadness and pain. He didn't know my laughter, and I didn't know his. He didn't know my excitement, and I didn't know his.

But I did know the depth of his love. I know he loved me because he died for me. I know he loved me because he chased me into the fire, and only I emerged from the ashes. And through that, I learned the weight of my love for him.

My life would no longer be the same. My love for him was not superficial or misguided. Love didn't have rules. I loved Vega. And Vega loved me. That was all that mattered. Tears continued to fall freely off my cheeks and into the dirt on his casket. They were absorbed easily, as if Vega was pulling them inside to keep with him for eternity.