Garden of Roses ✔️

Chapter 8

Dante

       As the three of them leave, Camilla throws herself on the massive couch beside me with a loud sigh. "You need to take care of that." She points at my hand that is still bleeding slowly. I was so mad at the moment that I completely forgot about my wound.

I get up from the couch, annoyed, and go to the kitchen to wash the blood off and clean the deep cut.

"Can you bring the scotch from the cabinet when you're done?" Camilla yells from the living room, causing my eyes to roll in my skull.

Fucking alcoholic.

The cold water streams down my hand, coloring the sink red. It soon becomes white again as all the blood goes down the drain. I go to the bathroom next to find some gauze so I can wrap it up and then get back to the kitchen to find scotch.

As I enter back into the living room with a bottle and two empty glasses, I find Camilla still in the same position as when I left her. Her legs are stretched in front of her and she's lying back with her arms crossed over her chest. Her head is leaned back and her eyes are closed.

"Fell asleep already?" I try to startle her with my loud voice as I get closer to the couch and put the two glasses and the bottle on it since the coffee table is shattered all over the carpet.

"Not yet," she mutters through a yawn, completely not startled as she opens her eyes and reaches for the bottle, pouring the brown liquid evenly into two glasses.

"Do you want to continue our conversation from earlier?" I suggest as I take the first sip of my warm drink. To be honest, no, I wasn't excited about continuing with what we've talked about earlier, but I knew I had to ask eventually and thought maybe it would be best to just get it over with now.

"Oh, so you remember? I thought you completely forgot about how you left me hanging there like a fool."

When I glance up from my glass and towards Camilla, she's already looking at me with an annoyed expression on her face. "Sorry. That wasn't my intention."

"Yeah, I know. That little sneaky bitch really got to you." She chuckles at her snarky comment before taking a miniature sip from her glass. I feel the rage coming back to me at the mere thought of what she said.

"You know what, forget it." I lift my hands in surrender as I start to get up from the couch. Camilla grabs my wrist and pulls me back down harshly. "Oh, no. You're not getting out of this conversation, yet again."

"Then stop screwing with me and start talking," I growl as I sit back on the couch and down the rest of my drink, feeling the liquid burn all the way from my throat to my stomach.

"He told me that he was in love with me," she blurts, taking me completely by surprise. I expected her to dance around the subject for a while longer before we got to the point, but she just spat it out and was now looking at me, searching my face for a reaction.

"That son of a b...," I start but she cuts me off before I can finish my thought. "Stop it. He didn't do anything wrong," Camilla sighs deeply, "I just... wasn't prepared to hear that from him. If the circumstances were different, I would've probably reacted differently. When I heard those words come out of his mouth... I just froze. I didn't know what to do."

She takes a deep breath before continuing and I see her big green eyes fill with tears.

"I thought that I moved on. I was okay... maybe even a little bit happy. I thought that I was over it, and now... I don't think I ever will be," she pushes the words and I pull her into a hug as she silently sobs on my shoulder. I hate seeing my sister like this.