Page 140 of Deceptive Vows

When I walk down to the basement and open the door, all I hear are her quiet sobs.

I switch on the light, but she doesn’t move. Her head is still bowed and she’s still crying.

I feel like a bastard for leaving her like this. The sight is testament to the devil I am.

I hurt her just as much as Raul did. I added to her misery when all along we had an enemy in common.

Raul was our enemy. He killed my mother and sister, and he killed her parents.

I remember her nightmare, when she begged for her mother’s life. I recall thinking I never knew she’d witnessed her mother’s death. I was right. The real Adriana didn’t, but Natalia did.

I remember asking about the whip marks on her back and wondering why Raul would treat his daughter like that. I was right again. He didn’t treat the real Adriana that way; it was Natalia.

When Raul screamed and bawled out his eyes before I killed him, it wasn’t because I had his daughter. It was because he realized my mistake and knew I’d already killed his Adriana.

He knew the woman I had was the wrong one but couldn’t tell me because I’d sliced out his tongue.

The woman before me never deserved any of that. I don’t need to know her for any length of time to know that.

She doesn’t belong in our world…

José’s words come back to assault my mind with a vengeance.

If she doesn’t belong in our world, she doesn’t belong with me.

That’s one truth I know like I know my own fucking name.

It doesn’t hurt me any less to know it, though.

A few steps into the room, and the obsession I’ve felt when I’m with her hits me.

By the time I’m a few inches away, madness takes me again. Madness takes me when I think she played me and made me believe she loved me.

It’s only then she raises her head and looks at me.

Her face is red and swollen from crying. Her lips move, but no words come out.

It’s clear she thinks I killed José.

I see that pain in her eyes again. That agonized look from weeks ago. Except now I understand her, and the pain mirrors my own because of the losses she’s had in her life.

“I didn’t kill him,” I tell her, and obsession brings back the jealousy I felt weeks ago.

“You didn’t?” she chokes out.

“No.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry.”

Every time she says that, it irks me.

I rest one hand on the wall over her head and lift her chin with the other.

“Which parts are you sorry for, Natalia?” I try out her name with less angst. It feels right. “Sorry for the lie. Sorry that it didn’t work out? Sorry I found out you played me?”