Broken Angel (English Edition)

by Tatiana Oliveira

"Perhaps I was not very kind," She commented casually.

  Arthur chuckle.

  "Wednesday, since I've met you, you've been everything but gentle.”

  “It's part of my charm.” She answered, and partly recovered from the sudden sadness she felt, pushed the assistant toward the door. "Now get the hell out of here, nanny.”

  Arthur ignored the challenge attempt.

  “Lucky you I'm in a good mood. It's Christmas and I'll get you this autograph as a gift, but if you call me "nanny" again, I'll throw it away.”

  An almost deadly look from the young woman caused Arthur to hurry out of the room.

  “Angela.” Melissa said a little louder before he closed the door. “Her name is Angela.”

  The assistant opened the door again and cast a curious glance at the young woman.

  "Do you think you're going to miss the opportunity to spend your whole year on your idol's side, and you're just worried about getting an autograph for a friend, and nothing to you? Are you sure you're a fan?”

  Before worrying about being too obvious, Lissa put her fingers to her lips and smiled intimately.

  "I got more than an autograph for me.”

  ♫

  Standing in front of the door to his own room, Gabriel Voss wasn’t sure how to act. The house was silent at that time, and everyone was sleeping after they had finished the Christmas celebration, but the singer couldn’t get enough sleep and all he did was look at the ceiling of the guest room he occupied while he thought about the girl who was aware that she was now in the room he had given to her.

  It did not help to know, by Arthur, that the girl was convinced that she would be sent away, and it brought him a certain squeeze to her breast to know the cry that the assistant confided to him.

  So, after rolling over the bed, the singer picked up the picture that the assistant had given him, which had already been signed, and marched towards the master bedroom.

  He had an excuse to stand in front of that door at last. He wanted to give the drawing, to make it clear that it never crossed his mind to send the girl away, and to know how she was, and to confirm, in some way, that the kiss they had exchanged had indeed taken place, but lacked the courage to knock on the door.

  Maybe she was already asleep. Maybe she didn’t want to talk to him.

  Giving up hitting the Rockstar just turned the handle and slowly opened the bedroom door. He hoped to find Melissa on the bed, asleep. Perhaps that why his heart had failed when he saw the room without a sign of the girl on the bed. For an insane moment, he imagined she'd gone, without even saying goodbye.

  "Are all the singers that way, so rude?" Her voice, low and still a little hoarse came from the opposite side and Gabriel turned to find her precariously sitting on the sill of the large open window, the icy wind of Alaska hitting her and shaking her long black hair.

  As the room was in dark, he couldn’t see more than the outline of the girl, but regardless of the slight visibility found her image there, perched on the window, one of the most beautiful scenes he had ever seen.

  "You know, good manners say that you have to knock on the door before you go in." She continued, and without paying more attention to the singer standing in the middle of the room, she looked out again, trying to see behind the darkness of the night, the mountains in the background.

  Gabriel Voss just stood for a few minutes, staring at her, without know what to say and suddenly wanting to go to her, pulling her into the room and, not caring about the wintry wind that would surround them, again, right there in front of the open window.

  Shaking his head to dispel his thoughts, he smiled to himself as he recognized the relief he felt from not having her crying or cursing him.

  "I heard you wanted an autograph ..."

  Inexplicably, Melissa smiled, even with her face turned away, receiving the cold wind against her cheeks.

  "Mel..." He continued when she didn’t answer him.

  "I hate being called that way... Lissa is how my friends call me.”

  "And I'm your friend?" The singer questioned and couldn’t contain himself any longer, approached her.

  Releasing from the window where she was, Melissa let the wind hit her one last time before close the window and turn to find Gabriel right in front of her.

  "No," she answered honestly. "If I tell you the truth, I only have one friend.”

  "Angela ..." Gabriel answered, offering the drawing that he signed for the girl standing before him. He didn’t care that he wasn’t a friend. Despite his short acquaintance, he knew that Melissa was often sincere in the extreme, bordering on rudeness and in fact they were not friends.

  In fact, looking at her as she picked up the picture and smiled at the paper, the singer realized that "friend" was not quite the position he wanted to occupy.

  "To Angela, the lucky girl who has a friend of gold, with love... Gabriel." He recited what he had written, knowing that Melissa wouldn’t be able to read in the darkness of the room.

  “Thanks!” She answered in a choked voice. "That’s..." She looked away from the sketch and fixed it on the singer. "It's the best Christmas present I could get."

  At the statement, Gabriel suspected that he wasn’t in front of a fan... Strangely, the suspicion didn’t bother him, on the contrary he encouraged and acted.

  "That's the kind of statement I expected to get when I gave you an autograph..." He remarked to tease her. “Number 1 fan.”

  Something in the way he spoke made her curse herself for continually make mistakes.

  "Of course, I want an autograph of my own..." she hastened to say. "But this..." She shook the sketch. “It has a special meaning. And anyway..." She paused suggestively. "You gave me a nice gift down there."

  "About this" Gabriel, unmistakably, felt shy. “I...”

  "I already know..." Lissa interrupted him. "You're sorry, are not you? It was not supposed to happen and such...”

  "No," He denied, firmly. He even thought to repeat the denial more emphatically, but he decided to do what he had wanted to do since he saw her running up the stairs, leaving him behind with his sister in his arms.

  Without Lissa wait, he used one hand to take hold of her and never pulled her to him, putting his lips to hers.

  The surprise did not last for a second and without thinking of anything but the wonderful feeling that filled it once more, Melissa left the drawing she was holding on to the floor and wrapped her arms around the singer's neck, standing on tiptoe to match the kiss.

  It was sweet, quite unlike anything Melissa could have imagined, just his lips gently brushing hers. He didn’t deepen the kiss, no tongue involved, just a fondness the girl didn’t know she longed for.

  "Me..." He whispered as he pulled back a little and automatically slid his lips down her cheek until he reached her forehead and dropped a saddle.

  "I told you" She answered without wanting him to back away. “I hate being called that way.”

  He laughed, pulled away, and suddenly pulled her until he sat on an armchair and, without a second of hesitation, placed her on his lap.

  “Gabriel!” She tried to get up, uncomfortable with the approach. Her mind was ready to nail one more piece and make her confuse that moment with another ... What would make her start a new panic attack.

  Fortunately, his hands holding Melissa and pulling her close did not allow her mind to be lost in memories, just as he would not let her go.

  "Mel…" He said again when she gave up and settled on his lap. “Did you know that in Portuguese language, among other things, Mel is a way of saying that someone is a sweet? It suits to you. You're a honey.”

  She laughed heartily, as she hadn’t for years.

  “Oh my gosh! It’s a horrible pickup line!”

  "It's not a pickup line.” He pulled away the strands of hair that fell on her face. "It's a statement. You make yourself tough, but inside you’re sweet...”

  “You don’t know me.” She retorted, humorless.

>   "I bet your friend Angela agrees with me.”

  Troubled by what he was saying, Lissa shifted on his lap.

  With so little time, Gabriel already knew what was coming, she was going to close herself again. With an uncertain smile, he gripped her feminine waist and pulled her closer.

  “What are you doing?” Melissa used her hands to spread his chest and prevent him from continuing.

  "Getting ready to kiss you again..." he replied, bringing his face close to hers.

  “Just ii?” The girl let her hands slide to the singer's shoulders, but she still stood up, ready to try to pull away again.

  “Just it.” He assured her. "What else would it be?"

  She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking, better… remembering, when she was in that same position... She waited for the anguish, for the despair... Nothing happened, except for the sensation of Gabriel's fingers beating her waist distractedly.

  “Mel?!” He whispered.

  She smiled. It didn’t sound so bad when he was talking... She just would not let him know that.

  “Shut up, Gabriel”. Lissa replied. "And kiss me."

  With a contented and mischievous smile, Gabriel prepared himself to attend to the girl's order. He was eagerly desperate to taste her sore lips once more. Now that he had discovered how pleasant it was to kiss her, he was convinced he couldn’t stop himself from doing so.

  For Lissa, the reciprocal was true. And although her motives were totally opposite to those of the singer, she also felt at the core the overwhelming need to bring him ever closer. She had discovered Gabriel's touch driving her away from the giant black hole she held within herself; the dark feelings that threatened to suck her soul and wallow in the most terrible dismay.

  As they began the long-awaited kiss, the girl almost laughed with such joy as her heart sank, her arms and legs stiff and her head floating... It was a frighteningly pleasant sensation. She never felt in her life anything like this. She had never felt so peaceful. And it was at this moment that the girl was certain that Gabriel Voss was like a potent antidote that fought the deadly poison that consumed her life, day after day.

  However, the splendor of joy lasted for very little time. Almost as if it were a curse she could never get rid of, the well-known oppression that always massacred her appeared to ruin the beautiful moment. As Gabriel deepened the kiss and the mood became so intense that the singer touched her intimately, Melissa felt as if she were being driven from reality and swallowed up in the most horrifying and dreadful nightmare. Immediately the bitter memories of the worst days of her life filled her mind with no mercy. Glimpses of the violence and brutality with which she had been treated for so long.

  To Gabriel's surprise, as he watched the girl rise from his lap quickly and run away, left him totally unresponsive. It was very difficult for him to understand what was happening. Even in the dim light in the room he was in could see Melissa huddled at the foot of the bed, embraced the knees, rocking forward and back, crying uncontrollably and muttering a single word: "No."

  Frightened and utterly perplexed by the Dantesque scene, he tried to search in his brain for information that would help him understand what he had done so wrong to leave her in that deplorable state while at the same time looking for a way of dealing with the situation without leave the girl worse than she already was.

  Hesitantly, he got up from the chair, swallowed, and walked slowly toward her, trying to appear as harmless as possible.

  "Melissa," he whispered softly, afraid to frighten her. "What's going on?"

  "No... Please, do not hurt me." she murmured in a tone so painful that it broke his heart.

  "I will not hurt you" He tried to show sincerity. "I swear I will not."

  Suddenly, the girl stopped swaying and remained motionless. Her head was hidden between her knees, with heavy tremors running through her body. And then she simply fell to the side, falling to the ground with a soft thud.

  Immediately Gabriel supported her, taking her in his arms and laying her down on the bed. Her beautiful face was contorted with agony, pale paper. Gabriel sighed desolately, stroked her heavy black hair and with a mixture of anger and regret whispered to the unconscious girl:

  “What they did to you?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN - MY SACRIFICE

  “Oh how quickly life can turn around…”[9]

  T he distant sound of the ringing of her cell phone made Melissa awaken slowly. Still drowsily and physically shaken by the panic attacks that hit her on Christmas Eve, she forced herself to stand and cross the room until she reached the annoying device that kept ringing. Before she could see who was calling her the middle of the night, a curse left her lips when her toe crushed against the foot of the table.

  “What the fuck!” She started to repeat as she limped back to the bed, at the same time she attended the damn call. “What you want?”

  "Merry Christmas to you too..." Angela's animated voice grabbed Mel's attention.

  “Ang...”

  "’Course it's me, my denatured friend”. Melissa smiled at the attempted reprimand that was to come. The sweet voice of her best friend didn’t match anything with false scolding. “Now that you're there, with the most handsome Rockstar on the planet, you've forgotten that there are poor mortals waiting for a miserable phone call...”

  Unable to avoid it, Mel burst out laughing.

  “What? You're laughing at me...”

  “Ang...” Bittencourt interrupted her friend's inflamed speech, trying to control her laughter. "I'll never forget you. I even have a gift... I think you'll like it.”

  “Course I will like it.” Angela said excitedly. "But forget the present... What I really wanted is you here with me. It's the first Christmas we've been apart since we met...”

  Melissa cleared her throat to disguise the commotion that took her. She missed her best friend so much and would also like to be there with her, where she was loved and not among strangers who treated her as if she were a freak... Although Christmas with Gabriel Voss might have been very interesting if the singer's younger sister ruin everything.

  "I miss you too" She whispered into the phone. "But if I'm far from you, it's your fault that got me into this touring madness."

  The mention of the tour made Angela sigh and Melissa roll her eyes.

  “So… you owe me a full report and photos, lots of pictures. I remember you promised that you would document everything for me”.

  “I don’t have much to tell..." Mel put a finger to her mouth and unconsciously bit into a piece of fingernail. "No show until the singer recovers. So, we're stuck in Alaska, with his family and band members...”

  “Oh, my gosh!!! Did you meet Gabriel Voss's family? And say it like it's nothing... Melissa!!”

  “Calm downy, Ang! No need to shout... I still haven’t been deaf, just bored.”

  “Bored? How boring can you be having the most desired singer in the world as a company?”

  “It's..." Melissa looked at her clenched nails and almost laughed as she remembered that the most wanted singer in the world was terrified of her nail-biting habit. “He's not that bad... Just a little bit crazy. Did you know he has some dirt problem? The guy almost flinched when he saw me biting my nails.”

  “Of course, I knew... And you would also know if you read the damn report I told you to read. The whole world knows that Gabriel has misophobia. It’s not a little problem, it is a phobia that would terrify you with the possibility of a contamination. So, be gentle and stop doing those craps near him.”

  “Ah, but it's so much fun watching him shrink and nauseate..."

  “Melissa!”

  "Okay, okay ... Maybe I'll try to be cool.” Unwillingly, she remembered when he kissed her and smiled to herself when she realized that at that moment the phobia, whatever it was, didn’t stop him from approaching her germs. "But only if he's cool with me, too."

  “Has not he been?” Angela asked worriedly.

  It was so cool that he kissed
her, and with that, she fought with panic attacks... But Mel didn’t want to tell anyone, at least for now.

  “I don’t think his sister likes me.” She changed the subject for fear that she would end up talking too much. “And I definitely detest her.”

  “Melissa Bittencourt, give me a person all over the world that you do not hate.”

  “You…” Mel replied immediately and almost choked when another name exploded in her mind: Gabriel.

  Holy shit! She should hate the singer.

  Ignoring the confusion that threatened to take over her head, the girl forced herself to focus on the lively conversation she was having and when she realized she was laughing at what her best friend was saying to her, just as she giggled with everything she had already done on the trip.

  “I'm glad you're having a good time...” Angela said through a yawn after almost an hour of conversation. “I know you went on this tour against your will. I would feel terrible if you hated everything.”

  "I'm doing it for you." Melissa was emphatic. “But I can’t deny that it has good moments... Now, young lady, you must sleep.”

  “You speak like my mother...” Ang yawned again.

  “It must be because we both love you and we have to take care of you.”

  “I love you too, Lissa!” Her friend answered before agreeing to close the call and say goodbye.

  “Take care of yourself, Ang...” Melissa hung up, but stared at the phone for a few minutes. The conversation had been lovingly and contagiously entertaining, but now that it was over, she was terrified, wondering if her friend would still be alive and well when this tour was over.

  The moment was broken when the phone rang again, this time indicating a message.

  Only three words that made her throat tighten and stay dry.

  "Merry Christmas,my princess!"

  The sender's number was her mother's, but Mel knew well who had sent the message, only using the affectionate nickname for which she had disgust.

  She took a deep breath and closed her eyes tightly before throwing the cell phone on the floor of the room as if the phone was burning her hand.