by Nivia Borell
I jerk my head as Damien nods to himself. I guess her stubbornness is a known trait, wondering if he would be as sympathetic to know the cost of her most unappealing and life-dangerous trait.
“I couldn’t even pick my father up at the airport. He came straight to the hospital. The doctor confirmed what we were guessing. There was no celebration afterward or playing family again. We were viewing the official beginning of the end, and we were attending it from the first row. It’s above my understanding how she pulled through the last year with a weakened heart, a few hours of sleep a day, eating when her stomach growled in a fit and working like she found her damn catharsis. She infuriated me to the point I extended my stays in New York as my father switched places with me. Every day my patience with her condition decreased only to feel guilt chewing on my inside and flying back to her, every damn time with the hope she would allow me to help her. She kept doing penance for her mistakes hidden behind her wall of impenetrability. Anger erupted in me. I found out the hard way you can’t ask someone incapable of feelings to acknowledge the injustice of her false directed solidarity toward her guilt, you, and her family. It is beyond my understanding why she continued to stay here when she was adamant to keep away from you anyway? My pleas of moving back to New York were met by deaf ears every time.
“I am sure if we had remained in New York, Bria would have found a way to live again. But you succeeded to smash every one of Dad’s and my accomplishments with her wellbeing.”
The muscle in his jaw twitches as his eyes flash with something familiar. Every one of my words rams him as I notice how the color drains from his face.
“I know you are in pain. I point my finger at his face and add, “You can’t hide it well, at least not from me. I am good at reading that particular emotion because it’s what I observe in the mirror every day.”
We battle with our stares, and I declare, “But I didn’t promise you pain when our little session began, Damien. I promised you the same thing you pledged her… complete devastation.
“Although I can’t be certain you caused it, my experience says you did because you were the only one who ever got her to react, so it’s impossible for my brain to think she had a heart attack out of nowhere. Are you aware what they say to patients who suffer from heart problems? They tell them to steer clear of situations that may put them through emotional pain or stress. They should avoid it for there is the risk of future attacks.
“But with Bria not capable of emotions, it was a damn small relief. I was not factoring you into the problem because I believed you would never cross the line. I guess I was wrong.
“So tell me, Damien, what happened between the time I left and the next day when Bria collapsed in my arms?”
His entire body rocks with a shiver.
“It’s not your concern, Alexander. It is between Bria and me. If she wanted you to know all about our story, she would have told you long ago. Or do you think I’ll spill my guts to you? You do not understand what real pain is. Unrequited love is your pain? Try tearing the love of your life off your soul because she left you in pieces for a change.” He shouts the last part out, and the tips of my fingers rattle on the bar surface. It’s admirable he’s still able to be coherent. Hmm, challenge accepted.
“Pain is pain. Don’t pretend yours is bigger than mine. But what should I expect from someone as selfish as you? Do you even realize you confirmed what developed after I picked her up from your folks’ place is because of you? Are you ready for the final blow?”
I lubricate my dry throat with some saliva as I fetch myself up, my legs surprisingly firm for the turmoil ringing inside me as I tower over him. He cranes his neck, and I let him detect, behind my black irises, the upcoming grief. His eyes widen as his hands twitch on his glass.
“It doesn’t even give me satisfaction to tell you this, Damien, but I have nothing more to lose. I have carried this weight with me for such a long time. I also need a reprieve. From now on, it will be your decision what to tell the family when the time comes… the truth, or, if you respect her wishes, the sham that it was just an accident.”
“What are you talking about?”
His eyes blink, and a battle of indecision crosses his face while his reptilian brain urges him to connect the dots.
“The morning when I arrived to find Bria in a state of near collapse, I placed her in the car and sped like a madman to the nearest hospital, dreading my greatest fear would manifest. She had another attack. They called it a coronary artery spasm. It’s not a common cause for a heart attack, but not unusual in someone with her heart’s degrading condition. I didn’t understand much of what the doctor said, but when he named potential causes, one caught my attention… emotional pain or stress. Does that ring a bell, Damien?”
“Are you telling me she had a heart attack?”
Is he slow in the head?
I offer a sneering nod.
DAMIEN
My chest tightens, and my heart clenches together. All my instincts bellow something catastrophic will emerge when he finishes the story. His dejected and eerie calm stance is a clear indicator. As pain contorts his face into a point of pale dread, empty eyes, and sunken jaw, acceptance surfaces as a result of someone who has tried everything, but it has never been enough and has to accept.
My hands plummet beside me, and if it weren’t for the stool, I’m sure I would have crumpled to the floor. I caused it all… being the seed of destruction, everything I said to her. Everything that happened to her is because of me. I made her ill. I destroyed us, not Bria.
My entire body ripples while I yank the ends of my hair.
I am the greatest villain in the story.
Me and no one else.
My name, a synonym for annihilation.
I lift my head only to see a nod from Alexander.
I have to find her.
ALEXANDER
He springs to his feet like the stool electrocuted him. But before he can scoot away, I grip his upper arm and tug him to his place. Does he think I’m done? Such a wimp. I have endured this pain of knowledge for years.
“Not so fast, Damien.”
His eyes widen into two sausages. Oh, the fool doesn’t realize the worst is yet to come.
“I got her to the hospital in time. They used a defibrillator and medications to get her heart beating again. She was covered with tubes and needles poking her frail skin. I stood nearby immobilized with fear even after the danger had passed. Still, my body shook.
“The doctor ordered several tests and said the heart attack had damaged her already vulnerable heart, and another surgery would have to be performed.
“When Bria woke up and heard the news, she regarded us and declined, in the most fucked-up polite way you can conjure. It was a damn miracle I didn’t strangle her. The calmness behind her voice had me slam my fist into the wall.
“The doctor’s mouth hung open. He was supposed to save lives, and she had just denied his help. I admit he tried everything possible to convince her, but not even the threat she might have a maximum of eighteen months to live and another attack would be fatal could get to her. She exhaled, and her eyes lifted up, Damien, like she was getting the best news in centuries.”
Spit gathers in the corners of my mouth as I spout, “And you question my pain? I will tell you what pain is. It’s when a member of your family embraces death without even giving it a second thought and leaves you there hanging.
“You forget, Damien, she is family to me. My feelings for her are irrelevant. She became the light in our lives. My father sobbed when I confirmed her decision. I’d never seen my father cry, well, only once when my mom died. His reaction made me realize the finality of it all. Bria would leave us.”
I let my words sink in as I stare enthralled at how the speed of understanding crashes into him and deforms his pretty-boy face.
DAMIEN
“Did I hear you right? Bria… she is…”
I can’t bring myself to utter t
he words. My eyes shut as I knead my fingers. I must have misheard him. She can’t, she just can’t. Moisture veils my vision. I wrap my hands around my head to gain some composure. I am free-plunging into a long, rocky fall that slices my skin open. In the fall, my body crushes, my heart bursts, and my mind gives way to craziness as my guilt gnaws at my veins.
“She’s dying, Damien.” His voice fractures with his statement, and he fights back his tears.
He springs and makes a 360-degree circle gesturing at our surroundings before his eyes collide with me again.
“This was a masked goodbye party, a charade, to be honest. Tomorrow, she’ll be who knows where living out her final months. Supposedly, the jet will crash with her on board so you and your family will accept her death as an accident. Very morbid, don’t you think, to plan her own death to protect you and the others from the reality she has chosen? She wouldn’t even accept the medication she needed after the attack. She signed herself out of the hospital the moment she could stand which was around forty-eight hours later, went home, took a shower, and submerged herself in work.
“She built her walls so high and thick, the last flicker of life in her obscured. After she stumbled out of your house, she lived even more as a recluse. Everything she had left went to the company, and she gradually accustomed everyone in the family to her distance.
“You never saw her after her birthday last year, did you, Damien? Not at family dinners or parties, not at Christmas, and not even on family birthdays, not even when you called the Board did she attend. She sent Emma with a full report instead. She was the master of great excuses, and everyone brought them. No one ever questioned her.”
I could interrupt him by saying my sister observed and has even warned me, but I chose to look the other way. The pain chokes the air out of my lungs like a boa tightening around my neck.
“She once told me how easy it was to create believable stories for people who eat them up as if they were starved. She said, ‘They may notice something is wrong, even feel slight discomfort, but it’s not enough to question.’ The appeal of not disturbing the status quo is bigger, and we humans love our comfort more. And why to distort it, if you think about it, isn’t our selfishness and personal survival that brought us so far? This was how she saw it.
“Most of the time, she wished only for my father’s presence. You think I connect with her? You should see them interact. I’ve never seen a more perfect regularity between two people.
“They played chess talking about everything and nothing and making plans in hushed tones. She favored his presence over mine, but I couldn’t be angry about it. In her place, I would have chosen him, too. He was giving her the impression her decision was hers to make and, as always, he would be there for her.”
Even though my insides rip with the unyielding storm emerging with the truth of Bria’s condition, jealousy over Quinn and their relationship creeps its ugly face in too. Scanning Alexander, I detect the opposite as a defeated acceptance shows in his sunken eyes.
“My father accepted from the beginning what I never did. Bria lives on borrowed time. They both accepted it long ago even though my father hoped to beat the odds. I had so many fights with him throughout this year as to why he wasn’t doing anything. I didn’t know he had this one, a last shot to get through to her.
“Her immense guilt and not able to be sure what happened to her and what led to the events of the night consumed her. I guess it buried her will to move on. My father thought, if she gained the answers to the night of her eighteenth birthday, it would alleviate her. So he went in search of something, anything to bring clarity. It’s remarkable how people remember events long past when they see an endowment.
“My father’s people found the video. I had nothing to do with it. I was only a pawn in the game my father prospected to win against Bria, the master of strategic planning trying to teach her a valid lesson… never to think she has won just because the others signal in acceptance, because the power play never ends. As we both know, it hasn’t seemed to help, but at least I tried. I attempted everything in my power and beyond, but nothing worked. I have the sick impression you would have succeeded without even going through half of what I’ve gone through if you had just been man enough to stay loyal to yourself and to her.”
DAMIEN
His words pour acid over my skin. I can almost smell the rotten smoke of frying flesh. I have one question, the only relevant one—the one stalling my heartbeat. The question is at the tip of my tongue as I curl inside me afraid to hear the answer.
“Is she dying?”
My voice cracks. The thought alone sends me spiraling to the hell of pain.
“You must be in shock, Damien. Yes, this is what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole night. She is leaving me, my father, you, and everyone else to spend her last months in a place she thinks is where she will find peace and solitude.”
There it is, the sound I dreaded, how my heart snaps. I shake my head as the rational part of me seeks clarity and focus.
“How much time has she left?” I ask choking on my words.
“Maybe half a year. Maybe less. It’s hard to say.”
“Where is she going?”
I tremble with the desire to punch him in the face as he shrugs, sipping his drink.
“Only my father knows, and believe me, he won’t say. He won’t even tell me, so you’ll get no chance. And you can hire the best people available, and they won’t find her. My father would not be in the position he is today by leaving anything to chance.”
“But how can he support this?” I shout, pain echoing in my ears.
“Easy. It’s how my father is paying the debt he thinks he owes my mother for not being there for her when she was ill. He is blinded by his remorse. He thinks this is how he can find his peace in return, by at least granting one woman he’s loved to have her way. Ironically, he concocted plans and dug information to find a way not to give in to her request.”
Fuck this and what’s right and wrong altogether. She’ll have her way over my very dead body.
“I’ll never let her leave.”
“I note your determined gaze, Damien. I wore that expression for years. How do you think you can achieve it, though?” The corner of his lips turn up, mocking me.
“You underestimate me, Alexander,” I say. “This has always been your problem. You minimalize the profound connection between Bria and me. I’ll convince her to have the surgery done.”
He tilts his head, his expression lost in deep thoughts, and he says, “I think it’s too late, even if, let’s assume, you could achieve it. The damage by now has to be irreparable.”
“Only death is irreversible, Alexander! I’ll find the best doctors. I’ll pay whatever’s necessary.”
I wonder what keeps him plastered on the spot in the middle of the dim bar looking more like a shadow of a man as he scrubs his chin and eyes me quizzically. Am I arrogant enough to believe he gives me the excuse of believing I have a shot at saving her? Or is it more the last hope of someone in love?
“Well, let’s pretend you’ll succeed which is rather impossible, and money, we both know, is no impediment. I have it, and you have it. Hell, she has it but would never use it to save herself. But what’s your plan, Damien?”
His eyes scan me, and my insides revolt as to show me it’s against my nature to prove myself in front of him, and still I answer, “Me. Bria has only one weakness, and it’s me.”
He bounces one finger on the bar, and adds in a low and rather cynical tone, “Well, try not to kill her tonight. I don’t think it would please her much if you jeopardized her plan, and it would be nice to have a drama-free birthday celebration since it will be her last.”
I cringe to hear him speak about her death in such a matter-of-fact way. “Why the fuck are you so damn calm?”
I am on the brink of losing my mind, and my body shivers in the rhythm of a steady clock beat, and my voice has lost all hint of sarcasm. Alexander
has kept his promise well. I am ruptured to the bones. If I ever heal, I’ll resemble Frankenstein on the inside.
His eyes seek mine, acceptance written in his stare, and deadpans. “I’ve had a lot of time to prepare myself for this, seven long years, Damien, while anger clung to me. I have directed my hatred toward you, and you have directed yours toward her, like we’re in some sick hide and seek game, the only difference being our game was psychologically deadly, aimed at inflicting pain on the other players. I thought it would give me satisfaction to see you crumble in front of me, but it doesn’t, Damien. Somehow, we are all victims in this story, all linked to someone who chopped the bridges to everyone. Bria.
“As time goes on, I think I would prefer to see her with you again and still in my life, instead of being surrounded by only excruciating nothingness and forced to accept her last wish. She just turned twenty-five today, Damien. Such a short life. My only consolation is she had a life full of everything, she had love in abundance and loved just as much because only a great love could have caused such a reverse, leaving her with nothing, not even a glimpse of joy and comfort. Her coping mechanism enabled me to have her in my life in the first place. You got her youth and love and joy, while I got a broken, numb woman, I didn’t have at all. I have never had her, not even a part of her. So, I ask you, which of the two of us loved her more in the end?”
My mouth gapes, but words elude me. After acknowledging my body’s hindrance, Alexander continues, “You don’t need to answer. I have to live with the fact she had only one person in her heart. Before and after, it was you, only you. How is this possible, I don’t know? You really must have had something damn special, Damien. Now, you have to come to terms with knowing she was innocent and always yours in her health, illness, wholeness, and emptiness, and you treated her like dirt on your feet, like a worthless piece of old trash you tossed away. Is that love?”