Page 63 of Downfall

She pauses, no doubt collecting herself, and lets him lead her in.

The crowd seems to love it. To love her. Women are weeping, everyone is talking about their great love story as if they had one. As if this were some Greek tragedy playing out before our eyes.

It’s hard not to react to it. Hard not start shouting out the truth.

But that’s not why I came. I came to see her. To figure out if she really is grieving or if even this is a charade.

Only I can’t tell.

As I stand watching the woman I once loved walking inside and then, as I wait patiently for her to leave, I realise she’s an enigma. A puzzle that perhaps I’ll never solve.

Who the fuck is the real Rose Capulet? Because she wasn’t the girl I knew and she sure as hell isn’t the innocent looking woman I see before me now.

Roman

More days pass. More days spent with Sofia playing her game, carefully mind, while I become a full on stalker.

I’ve replaced all her security. She doesn’t know it. Paris’s men were shit at their jobs anyway but now they’re mine. Every single one answers to me. So in a way I’m already controlling her. She’s cornered like a wild animal in a trap blissfully unaware that it’s just about to go off.

I don’t need to hide. I could stand here, seen by all of them but I remain in my old spot. Concealed. I don’t know what she would do if she saw me, how she’d react, but I’m not ready yet.

I have a plan. A carefully crafted one.

And, despite my heart seemingly wanting to overthrow it for the sake of a pretty face and the wish to regain something long gone, my head wins out.

She’s my prey right now. And I’ll admit I’m enjoying the chase.

She mooches about. Reads more than I think is normal. She also seems intent on eating the entire contents of her fridge as if her newfound freedom extends that far. As if until now, even her culinary options were constricted.

She orders takeaway. Night after night. The leftovers litter the kitchen each morning and it’s the maids cleaning up after her though clearly they don’t complain. It is their job after all.

And then one day she stands, staring out through the expanse of glass.

As if she knows I’m here.

As if she can sense me.

I have the biggest urge to step forward. To reveal myself.

But just at the last minute she’s the one who turns away. Suddenly she’s racing through the house like a person possessed. She’s in the bedroom.Theirbedroom.

She disappears into the closet and for minutes I’m just stood waiting.

Then she comes back out, her arms full of what looks like clothes. She carries them down, dumps them all outside. Then disappears again repeating the action. When she’s done with the clothes she adds more items, a few paintings, a few books. All things I’d put good money on belonging to Paris.

It looks like she’s purging the house.

She lights a match, and I step forward then, but I realise she’s deposited it all into a firepit that’s submerged right in the middle of her patio.

As the whole thing goes up in flames it illuminates her face, twisting it into ghastly contortions that make her look in this moment like some sort of apparition. But as the fire starts to clear she looks at peace. She looks like something inside has been purged. That she’s cleansed her soul almost.

She sinks down sitting crossed legged on the slabs, drinking red wine from the bottle. One after another. As the night goes on she must be getting drunker and drunker but she makes no attempts to move. She just keeps drinking.

And then she suddenly keels over. Like it hits her all at once and her body can no longer handle it.

I move then, out from the shadows, out from my hiding space.

I don’t hide my steps. I don’t try to quieten them. I take each one deliberately with the intention of her hearing because she’s too drunk now to remember anything.

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