The Heart of Camilo (A Camilo Madrigal x Reader Fem Y/N Story)

Torn

*Y/N*

I struggled hard to regulate my breathing as I walked home, the glowing lights from the party fading behind me the further I walked. What the hell was happening to me? I wanted to scream and cry and freak out. I wanted to punch Camilo in the face and yet also wanted to run back to him and have him hold me like he had at the river. What the hell is happening to us? All these emotions churned inside me like an angry froth. Why would he pull away from me? I had slipped a look behind him and seen what he must have - his family all watching us dancing. But why would that upset him? As if they hadn't seen us hanging out our whole lives practically...

Don't be stupid, I thought to myself. You know why it's different now. You just can't form the word to explain it to him or even to yourself. But it's plain as day to everyone else. Did he pull away because he was embarrassed? Because he's as overwhelmed as me? Something else? Something I'm ... missing? I let the jealous thoughts creep back in as tears pricked at my eyes again, thinking of Luisa lifting up entire donkeys and throwing them around like peanuts and Isabella's conjuring of beautiful flowers, of healing people and controlling the weather... what it must be like to turn into anyone you wanted, hide when you wanted to, be whoever people needed you to be...

I was home, but it was the last place I wanted to be. The house was dark - perhaps my father was still asleep? Surely he must have woken from his nap to find me gone. It wasn't unheard of to allow me to attend parties in the square, could he possibly have assumed I had gone with Camilo and just gone to sleep? Doubt plagued my mind, but he hadn't come to the square to find me, and so I reluctantly pushed the front door open, looking one last time back down the street towards the square, wishing Camilo had come with me, that our dance had not been cut short.

Inside, no candles were illuminated and so the darkness was complete and thick. I reached for the lantern we kept by the door and lit it, piercing the darkness. I gasped - the entire kitchen and living room was trashed, clothes thrown about, dishes smashed. 

"Papa!" I screamed, pulling the lantern down and rushing through the house, looking for him. Had we been robbed? Had he been attacked? I felt sick. Why hadn't I allowed Camilo to come with me?

Then, out of the darkness of the bedroom, I heard a sound. I whipped around, holding the lantern up high, to see my father stumble out of the bedroom. He looked different. He didn't look right. I recognized the smell of alcohol on his breath. He didn't drink often, but when he did ... he drank.

"Papa, what happened? The house...!" I gestured around me. "Are you alright?"

"No, I'm not alright!" Papa screamed, suddenly grabbing a photograph off the wall and throwing it across the room at me.

I screamed and lunged to the side to avoid it, grabbing onto a chair from the kitchen to balance myself. I was so taken aback, I didn't even see him suddenly lunge at me, and his full weight hit my body and sent me sprawling across the floor. I felt a piece of broken plate cut my arm as I hit the floor and I gasped in pain, sitting up and attempting to crawl backwards at the same time. "What are you doing?!" I yelled in surprise, shock, anger ... I couldn't even tell what I was feeling, but tears were pouring down my face. It was dawning on me that he had done this, he had trashed the house, in what was clearly a drunken rage. The lantern had fallen beside me, but thankfully not broken, but being on the floor, it illuminated the house in a creepy, shadowy way. My father got up slowly and walked towards me, crouching down to reach my level. The alcohol on his breath made me gag. "Papa, what ...?"