Page 57 of Significant
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He looks at the ceiling, at every angle of my room except me. When his expression is back on me, a dry smirk appears on his face, making my stomach turn.
“I will. Never. Love. You. I played with you for my own amusement. Remember, just an agreement?” he says harshly. Brutally.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I repeat slowly.
“I’m bored with you. I was in it just for fucking. And I did fuck you good, right? You were just a challenge. Now you’re old news.” When I don’t react, he continues his cruelty. “I told you about my brother, hoping to be finally done with you. I came here to fuck you out of my life, nothing more.”
“Aaron, you’re hurting me, don’t say that,” I howl, my heart bouncing across my chest. I’m hurting. Breaking. I want to fight for him, but his words are devastating me. I don’t want to believe him—but it could be true. My demons begin to crash into me, I don’t know what to think, how to fight them.
“You’re insignificant to me, Elle.” He articulates every word, taking a step closer as I take a step backward. It feels like he has put a dagger into my heart. Making it bleed. Tearing it apart. Ripping it bloodily.
“It’s not true! Aaron, look at me!” I cry out, tears sliding down my cheeks when I find his gaze empty. Blank. Without any emotions. “You’re making me feel worthless, you’re humiliating me.”Don’t do this to me, Aaron. Don’t do like he did. Don’t push the one button in me that will make me fall apart and break me again.
“Because it’s what you are to me. And to everyone else.”
To everyone else…he hits me with the hard truth. The truth that opens the hole of my insecurities. The truth that can devastate me. I collapse on my bed, not feeling strong enough to stand. I feel humiliated in a way I’ve never felt. Some words are destructive, cataclysmic, detrimental.
“I hate you,” I yell out, my face on my pillow, as my pain is crippling me, ravaging my whole self.
“Good. And you’ll keep hating me for your own good.”
I hear him leaving without a word. He closes the door, exiting my life. This is over. The silence consumes me. Alone. Broken. He is my downfall, and he broke me in unexpected ways. I’ve reached the abyss of my soul, I’m bruising and I can’t heal.
I hate him the same way I’ve fallen for him. Deeply, fully, without warning until I crashed. Until he left me, taking my soul with him.
I don’t know for how long I sit next to my bed, looking blankly at the wall in front of me, surrounded by my darkness. Daytime begins to rise, and I feel like death, replaying the events of a few hours ago. I feel empty. My hatred is gone, I feel nothing. Chaos. He is like a poison running through my veins. He took my dignity, and everything with him when he left.
We were so close, but the closer we have become, the deeper we have fallen.
I look over my wrist. His mark is gone. Just like him. But the pain he caused inside my heart can’t be erased, it won’t heal. He is a part of me, we connected through our darkness, we hid behind our passion, and we caused destruction. We can’t love. We aren’t capable of such a pure feeling.
My doorbell rings, bringing me back to reality. I pray for the person to leave, I’m not in the mood for anything. I just want to hide and cease to exist. But it keeps ringing and ringing, creating a deafening noise, hurting my ears. I get up, pissed, and open the door violently.
“Good morning, Miss Monteiro. I have a delivery for you.” An old man dressed in a fancy suit stands with a commercial smile as he hands me a huge wooden box, probably one by one meter, with afragilesign on it.
I take the package, looking at it with confusion. There is no address on it. No shipment date. No expeditor. “I haven’t ordered anything. This must be a mistake.”
The man looks over his document, playing with his glasses, before smiling at me again. “Mr. LeBeau requested a week ago for our company to deliver this to you today. Can you sign here?”
Aaron? I don’t understand. This must be a joke. Probably more of his games. A new way to makes me feel insignificant. A thank-you note for fucking me. I sign the paper in dubiety, and the man leaves, calling someone. I close the door and set the box on my living room table. I take a cutter and decide to open it, in spite of myself. Inside the box, I distinguish something well-cushioned under the tons of bubble-wrap and rigid Styrofoam. I cut all of it, to see what’s inside.
I believe it’s a painting. At least, the back of a painting. My heart starts to bounce. My cells come to life again. I feel suddenly afraid to turn over the painting, to face what it could be. My breath quickens. I stand in front of it, incapable of turning it around. I finally find the courage and face the hard truth. I exhale violently, my breath cut, as I take a step back, noticing what it is. This can’t be. It’s not possible. I stay shocked, unable to speak or to think.
It’s a Romeo Di Angelo. And not just a Di Angelo painting but the one,Everlasting. The painting that saved my childhood, that comforted me, the one that accompanied me my whole life. The one I have as a print in the middle of my living room. The significant one. My dream. My hope. My idea of romance. How could he remember? How could he know? I must be dreaming. It’s unbelievable.
The mark is engraved, it’s the original dating from 1856. I shake my head, this can’t be true. I try to remember, searching on my phone for the proofs to collide. I find a few articles. The painting was in an auction a week ago in Italy. It had been sold to an anonymous buyer for ten million. There is a picture of the woman who bet for her client in question. I recognize her. It’s Francesca Vermont, the heiress. The one I was jealous of. The one who was photographed with Aaron on the same date.
He did it for me. I find the contract attached to the painting. The contract stipulates the painting belongs to me. It’s signed by the auction house—and Aaron, who paid in full for the painting. He bought a Di Angelo for me. I stand breathless, my emotions cannoning together. I knew Aaron was incredibly rich, but this is something else. Something significant. I don’t know what to think, what to believe.
The man who just left, breaking my heart, telling me I’m worth nothing to him, just bought me the greatest gift I could ever wish for. He went to Italy. He remembered something I told him months ago. He gave me my dream, my escape. He did something incredibly romantic and galvanizing.
You can only believe, I’m afraid. Those were the words he told me at the club. Words can be lies. Actions are proof. I stare over the painting, crying the rest of my heart out.
I was significant.
Until he broke me to free myself from him.
