A Mirror of Eden

Chapter Seven: When the Queen is Marred by the Claws of the Monster

Sienna Kaitlyn Leone

I was not a cryer. A lot of me lended that to my training. Another part of me lended it to just being some innate nature. I only cried when the pain was close to being unbearable or I was happy to the point of bursting.

The last time that I cried was for the latter because I was immensely caught off guard when Stefano proposed to Ilaria. That infuriating twin of mine didn't say a word to me. Maybe because he knew that I would look at his hopeful bride to be and burst into tears or something thinking about the big moment ahead of her that she knew nothing of. No matter the case, I had never been so happy for something that had nothing to do with me in my life, and in the whirlwind of it all I was rendered to screams and tears in that exact order.

I liked crying then because it was an elation to the tears. I would replicate that moment over and over again if I had the chance.

Currently, as I stood off the cliff with the waves crashing in the afternoon light, I would give anything to not feel like this. The tears stung as if it were pebbles of fire sliding down my cheeks. Reddening them in their wake with the unforgiving burn of their trek. This crying hurt, and it left me stunned because of how ferociously fast and unsuspecting these tears had been pulled from out of my heart and through the wells of my eyes. Everything was squeezing me from the inside-out and leaving me dowsed in a moisture that felt as if it would never dry.

When I said that I wished he'd lied, I meant that with every fiber in my being. I wasn't trying be poetic or get him to change course. In all honesty, he'd told me almost everything I'd wanted to hear since the first time we kissed. Yet, in further more damning honesty he said it to me now when we quote literally couldn't be together. Knowing that he wanted me as much as I wanted him while still being unable to have him hurt me more than him not wanting me at all ever could have. It put a knife through my heart, especially after spending the night tossing and turning in fear that I was but a game to him. In reality, as it had just been washed over me, I was everything but.

I wiped at my tears before looking out over the cliff. Today looked so perfect. If only I could've said yes to him. If only I could've been as free as him to make the choices that I wanted without consequence, then today would've actually been perfect. Every silently kept dream I had involving him would've come to life, but that in and of itself was but a fantasy. A harsh dream that was destined to never come true. It was, in short, a nightmare of the most twisted kind where it starts off like a dream just for the wickedness to rise out of the most unsuspecting puddle of ash to smoother me until I was startled awake in a cold sweat.

My fingers locked around each other as I took a deep breath and began walking back towards the villa on the sprawling estate. I could hear my heart thump over my quiet steps, and there was nothing ahed of me but the trail and the villa behind the sprawling flower fields. Leonardo was long gone, and I was grateful for it. My phone pinged and I almost didn't answer it until it buzzed again with a text pattern that made me fumbled for my pockets.