Hopeless Love

Fewer Ghosts

Chapter Thirty

"A glass has a fate, it's to shatter
Though it may try to escape
And I have a fate, it's to matter
To bloom before it's too late
But everyone's on their own time
For me, it was later than most
For all, it seemed to come easy
Maybe they had fewer ghosts."
Fewer Ghosts, Joshua Radin

Cordelia was frightfully strong, but not for the reason most people thought she was. On the outside, she appeared as the leader, the fixer, fast with her wit and even quicker at offering a helping hand.

She was selfless and self-assured. Lemonade and honey. A nip of brandy with ice that's settled to the bottom of the snifter. She was the one who was easily remembered and impossible to forget. She was a tornado and a hurricane amalgamated  into one charmingly beautiful heckofa woman. But yet, none of this was why she possessed such tenacity. Her true strength laid in her resiliency after grasping onto promises that were never kept.

She drew up her strength from the well of heartbreak and hid tears because she'd been told one too many times that she was "too emotional". This had left her hardened, unable to see the woman that was hidden inside of her. That one quiet voice that was screaming, "It's me. I'm here; please don't forget me." She drew her might from the only place she knew: the Lord. She cried out to Him when she was lost and prayed He made her humble and kind.

Sometimes her losses have been His mercies in disguise, but they have shaken her to her core. Her faith has been tested during these times, but still— she persisted. She surmounted the obstacles that seem to be tossed carelessly into the path ahead of her. Because of the times she has begged on her knees, the hours she's stared at the walls because she was too numb to show emotion.

Her shoulders, albeit sturdy, had wilted like flowers on a hot afternoon with every vulgar word that had been directed toward her, with every lie, and the absence of things she prayed for, but didn't receive.

Too, she was the type of girl who had  stood too close to the fire; too young to realize the recklessness of her actions. The allure was the amber of the ashes as they flicked up off the ground and the tip of the flames that glowed bright orange. They shined in her ocean eyes as she reached out the finger tips of one hand to feel the warmth tickle over them. It was the greatest sensation she had ever felt, and from that moment on, she was in love with the feeling of that heat dancing over her body.

The villain of her story isn't the fire, however, but the man who gathered the sticks and flicked the lighter to ignite it. For he is the one that would change her life. More opposite you could not find than the personalities between the two. Love is rose tinted, and in many instances even blind. No glasses but the ones of maturity can make one look back and see things for how they actually were.

Yes, she was courageous in her own right, but not for why you think she is. She is a wrecking ball and a force to be reckoned with. Her days of cowering at Gregory's commands and abuse were long gone.  But yet—there were some times when Cordelia could close her eyes and be transported back into her past.

There was a flash of a memory and Gregory was crawling on top of her, violently taking her soul away from her body in the form of rape; not only when Declan was conceived, but so many, many nights forward, as well.

Another flash and she could hear him telling her she wasn't good enough, that she was never and could never be the wife he wanted.

The memory that replayed in her head most often was of the night everything had changed for her family. "You're nothing but a whore!" He yelled, bending her wrist behind her back. When she heard the crack, she knew he had broken it and she immediately yelped in pain. The blow to her ribs came next, and all of the air was removed from her lungs. This has been the worst; the last. When Gregory was finally finished, she lay in a heap on the floor.

Delia could remember every detail of that night; the way the blood from her nose fell onto the carpet in droplets as she tried to gather the strength to get to her feet. She recalled the search for her keys: she had to get herself to the hospital, to hell with what the town would say about the Buchanan family. Cordelia could still see the look on the admittance nurse's face when she walked into the emergency room; bloody and holding her ribs with her good hand.

It was during this spat of abuse that Declan, her sweet Declan, hadn't bought into her story of falling down the stairs. He entered into his mother's hospital room where he sat for hours promising her that he would protect her, if she would only tell him the truth. It was only then that she finally broke down and told him what had really happened. Declan had moved back into the mansion after this and watched over his mother and sister until Cordelia had filed for divorce a year later.

Those had been the darkest times of her life, and most days she could brush the memories aside, but on the rare occasion she couldn't, she felt such a darkness inside of her. Daniel had made it easy to forget, easy to move on with her life.  However, there were still times that she couldn't shake off that over half her life had been spent with a man that was more than terrible to her.

She wasn't perfect and she often scolded herself for falling short. She had an idea of who she wanted to be and sought it out, grabbing onto it whenever and wherever she could. When she was disappointed in someone, she often gave them second and even tenth chances to prove themselves to her. This was her tragic flaw, the one Shakespeare himself often wrote about. It wasn't that she was a glutton for punishment or hurt, she just was always looking at situations and wondering if she were to blame for them instead of the actual guilty party.

She WAS happy for a time, this was true. Declan and Ashtyn were born and she knew that, at long last, this was the love she had been searching for. When their precious fingers curled around hers, when they snuggled up to her bare chest with their little bodies, and in the middle of the night when they would see her and look up with that unmistakable look of pure love. They were her everything and she was theirs. The love continued in this family for a short time until it simply didn't anymore. There came a time of betrayal, with depression so deep it was hard to dig out of, with disgust at the touch of the flame starter. It was hard to see beyond, but her focus forever remained on the well-being of her son and daughter.

Then there was this precious, strong soul who seemed to reach down and pull her out of her despair. "Delia?" He had stammered so many years ago in their park. Trusting was hard for Cordelia given all she had been through. She recoiled at his touch sometimes, lost in the memories of past abuse. It took her ages to retrain her body that nothing bad was going to happened anymore. The passion for life that used to run through her veins was present once more, and she could finally get her breath.

It was Daniel, Daniel who had led her back home, and Daniel who would keep her safe from the cancer inside of her.

Cordelia was restless this night, as she dreamed of all these things. Daniel, finally home from a long day of work, climbed in beside her. It didn't take Delia long to sense his presence and begin to calm.

She was halfway through.

Five treatments.

Five more to go.