Page 23 of Angel

Chapter Seven - Paige

“How about some TV?” Angelo asked.

He got up and brought me the remote from the cabinet on the opposite wall.

I couldn’t answer. There were no words to explain how I felt. A heavy weight pressed down on me, pushing me into the mattress. It kept getting heavier and heavier. Soon I would fall right through the bed, through the floor, through the earth. I’d come out on the other side of the globe and float away into space.

I didn’t want to watch TV at a time like this.

I needed to see Sophia. And if I couldn’t do that, what the hell was I supposed to do? I woke up a different person in this hospital room. Everything changed. I couldn’t just sit around and watch bad morning television.

There seemed to be nothingto do, really.

Other than talk about it all.

“I’ll tell you,” I said in a shaky voice. “About why I had a panic attack.”

Angelo froze with the remote in his hand. He set it back down and hurried back to his seat next to the bed.

“Yes. Of course. If you want to.”

“Yeah. I do.”

I looked down at my clasped hands. Were they always that white?

“I don’t know where to start,” I said in a voice so small I barely heard it myself.

“That’s okay. Wherever you want.”

“That photo...”

Angelo’s head cocked. “What photo?”

“That’s where it started. There’s a photograph in your house. My parents were in it. I saw it and I remembered...” Panic fluttered in my chest, half as real as it was that day so long ago.

A heavy minute passed.

Angelo spoke in a soft voice. “Is this about your parents’ deaths?”

“Yes.” I gathered my courage and tried again. As hard as it was to not talk about all of this, talking was just as hard. It was like pulling out a thorn. You knew you needed to do it, but the truth was that it hurt to let the thorn stay in and it hurt to take it out. One way or the other you were screwed.

“I was home,” I explained. “When my parents were murdered.”

Angelo said nothing. I turned my eyes from the wall to take in his face. He sat passive, not betraying anything.

“It was just me and Mom and Dad. Sophia was off somewhere. Probably at a friend’s house or something.”

Angelo’s hand scooped up mine. I squeezed it lightly.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

I ignored his offer. I needed to get it all out. Needed to dispel the poison that had lived in me for too long. All this time this sick memory had been lurking inside me and I didn’t even know about it.

“Mom and I were in the back. Dad answered the door and we heard voices. They got kind of loud. Mom looked so scared...” I swallowed hard, seeing her pale face.

The face that was just as pale as my hands were now.

“She made me go into the false wall behind the closet in her bedroom. It was this small standing up place. There were a couple little holes in it, though, so you could see out a bit.”