Page 46 of Cara
You forced her into this marriage.
You played with fate and lost brutally.
Accept the loss.
It wasn’t mercy. Just sick excuses. Justifications I created to convince myself she deserved more, as if anyone else could protect her better than I could.
Till death do us part.
I spoke those vows. I meant every word… and yet, my wife is a world away.
Idid that.
To get revenge, I did that.
What mattered before doesn’t anymore.
Let her hate who I’ve become.
As long as she’s breathing, it doesn’t matter.
“Claveles rojos!”
As I pay the taxi driver, a woman waves red carnations in my face, the world spiraling in slow motion.
From those budding flowers to the cobblestone terrace of coffee drinkers, my gaze scales the brick building until I'm staring at the door from the pictures I have tucked in my coat.
You’ll find her.
She’s not gone. You’d feel it.
Crossing the street, I envision her in this foreign place. Sitting at this café. Passing by me on the sidewalk. Climbing those stairs.
She’s everywhere.
A bronze bell above the door notifies the owner of my entrance. Unaware that I'm the stranger he spoke to ten hours ago, he offers me a warm greeting, directing me to an open table. “What can I get you, mi amigo?”
“Espresso.” My chest pounds. “I heard something strange about this place the other day.”
“From the news?” He clicks his tongue with disappointment. “Yes, I’ve been dealing with this for days now.”
Days. Fucking days?“What happened? Do you know?”
“Not much. The apartment upstairs is wrecked. They also found blood on the roof and the side street, but they haven’t caught anyone yet.” He massages the back of his neck, visibly discomforted. “It’s making locals nervous. This isn’t the type of thing that happens here. There was a lot of screaming that night. A woman’s.”
Stay. Calm.“I see.”
Mist appears in his eyes at the thought of my wife. “Poor girl. She was too young to go through something like that.”
Somehow, I manage to control the tremors in my voice. “Were you close to her?”
He frowns. “She wasn’t the kind of girl you could get close to. She was always alone. No friends. No man. It seemed she was always waiting for someone.”
As trained as I am, I struggle to conceal how gutting his words are, a disabling wound.
“No one found her… body, though,” I grind out. “The blood could have been someone else’s.”
“Oh, you didn’t hear?”
