No Shame (Book 2 - No Regrets)

Chapter Sixty-Eight - We're the World's Toys

DOMINICK'S POV

She's crying. She's been crying a lot. Her hair is a mess and she has her hands pressed against her face. She's on the ground, her legs gave out from beneath her.I'm sitting in the corner, she put me here when we arrived and gave me her purse to entertain myself. I stand up.

  "Mommy?" I reach out and brush some of her hair away from her tear-soaked face. She looks at me from the corner of her eye.

Her hand swings out before I can react, slapping my hand back. I hold my hand, the skin is red from where she hit. Next, I feel a shove and then I fall on my bottom. The pain is instant, but I get up without a word or tear. "I told you to stay in the corner. Damn it!" She yells at me. "This is all your fault, you made him leave!" She grabs a cup off the table beside her and throws it at me. The plastic cup bounces off the ground before rolling a little ways away. She reaches toward me, my arms and legs scramble trying to get away. She grabs me by the elbow and yanks me to my feet. "You need to learn to listen to what I say!" She strikes me hard on the bottom. I let out a cry of pain.

Then her eyes widen in horror, she releases me. I fall to the ground, crying in pain. She covers her mouth and lets out a cry, "I'm sorry... I'm-" She wipes the tears from her face. "You don't deserve this. I...should have never had you. I'm so sorry."

  I close my eyes and when I open them, I'm in my bedroom. It takes a second before I register the sound of Mollie's crying. "There there, i'm coming." I say as I get out of bed. I walk out of the room and over to Mollie's, but find only an empty bed. I rush in and begin to frantically search, I look under the bed and on the bed.

The door to the room opens, I spin around and find Aria. "Do you have Mollie?" I ask her. Aria walks over, her hands are balled into fists and hang at her side. She approaches me. "You did this." Her voice is hollow. She raises her fists and starts beating against my chest. "She's gone because of you!" She yells at me. "She's gone forever!"

I catch her fists, "Whose gone? What are you talking about?" I ask her. "Where's Mollie?"

Aria buries her face into my chest and let's out a strangled scream. Then, she shoves me in the chest. I lose my balance and fall to the ground.

I feel blades of grass brush against my fingers. I'm outside now. The only light comes from the moon. The wind blows and I hear the rustling of the tree branches.

I'm consumed by dread. I become aware of the shadow that cloaks me. Slowly, I raise my head. "You should never have existed." A voice whispers as I lay my eyes on the horrifying sight. It's not a what, but instead a who.

I jolt awake and sit upright, my heartbeat blaring in my ears. It takes a moment to fully orient myself. I'm in the living room of the apartment, it's still dark outside. My head and back are soaked in a cold sweat.

I get up, wiping the sweat from my brow. I quietly make my way down the hallway and peak into Mollie's bedroom. The panic from the dream eases slightly at the sight of her sleeping peacefully.

A nightmare. That's all it was. I tell myself. However, that's not the complete truth. There was truth in what I saw, what I experienced in that nightmare.

Ezibel would become inconsolable sometimes and with that came an unpredictability. She would lash out at me when I tried to comfort her and then she'd breakdown. Continually repeating both her guilt and resentment for giving birth to me. She would apologize for bringing me such a broken situation and then she would cite my birth as being a curse that destroyed her life. Swinging back and forth between sentiments.

Though Aria maintains a certain image of her grief, a bittersweet acceptance of her losses, a look under the surface would reveal how lost in the abyss of despair she is in. She's never said anything to allude to this, but her eyes carry a hollowness. She's had to bury more than bodies. Aria has never blamed me for Nikki's death. She turns to me for answers though. She longs for answers as to why Nikki left the world the way she did, answers that don't exist. Aria longs for answers that can magically get rid of all the sadness and anger she feels. I wish I could give her the answers, because then I could have them too; and I could be healed too. I try to not spend too much time in that place, within my mind, futilely searching for answers to questions and imagining solutions that change how things are.