A Flower Between the Thorns: A Mafia Romance [REWRITING]

Chapter 29: Lost Time

(Not edited)  

Fleur's POV:

There was that moment when I became aware that I had woken up again. Distant noises and light knocked on my eyelids, asking them to open up. This was the moment I hoped I would return to my slumber. For how long? That wouldn't matter. As long as I would not open my eyes to this vicious world again. As long as I do not have to face what happened after I shot myself.

Did Alberto shoot Emma and Mia out of spite? Just because things didn't turn out as he planned? I didn't want to wake up in a world where I lost my sister for a second time. A world where Fillip might find me alive, but his daughter would be gone.

Did Alberto take me to a hospital? Did he keep me in that cell? Am I waking up after I passed out just to die slowly this time? There were questions that needed to be answered, but my heart wasn't strong enough for the consequences of those answers. My heart didn't want to be in pain again after all the things I had been through.

If anything, there was a part of me that was finally relieved. Maybe it was the part of me that is selfish. I know it was, choosing to just leave everything behind. Having to face Fillip with venomous hatred poisoning either of our hearts when it was neither of our faults was the last thing I wanted to do. So in that moment when I decided this was it for me, my heart felt comforted by the fact that I would be here no longer. I would no longer face all this unfairness in the world alone.

Yet even with that decision, I couldn't have till the end. For that, my heart was blazing with wrath. Starting to beat harder and harder, machines started to beep louder, and I learned I was in a hospital. Did Alberto bring me to the hospital? Did his torture have no end? Bring me to a hospital just to take me back into that room. He would threaten me with Mia and Emma again, I know. Voices were morphing over each other, and to satisfy my own curiosity, I gave in to the light and opened my eyes.

Melancholy. My eyes locked in with melancholy. Welcoming the sorrow with open arms, I reminisced about the feeling I got from looking into those eyes, for I had missed it for the longest time. I fantasised that I would see them again; I must have been dreaming, because as fast as I took in his eyes, they were gone.

He was being rushed out of the room. Out of everything they could have done to make my heart slow down, they were rushing him out of the room. It only pulsed harder as I tried to get after him.

Cold hands—too many hands—were pulling me down, trying to keep me in place, but I didn't want to stay down. I wanted to see him again. Even if this was just a hallucination and I was dying, I wanted to bid those wandering, sad clouds in his eyes farewell. Just one last time.

"Fillip..." I rasped. My throat scarped as I tried again to call for him, but I did not have any energy to do so. Despite that, I tried to keep fighting those hands that were taking me down to the grave, pushing my heart to the limit. By sending it speeding off a cliff. I just needed to see his eyes again.

But even this last thing I wanted I couldn't get. Drooping, my eyelids closed down on the world again. They must have given me something to stop me from trying to get off that bed, or maybe it was death finally claiming my soul.

*****

I can feel the part of my stomach that spilled all that blood and was sewn shut. Maybe the blood has stopped spilling yet; there was that ache that would never stop lingering and spilling from there. All that pain from having to choose. The choice of leaving Filip for the first time, when it seemed like the right thing. Then the second time, that was the only way to stop more pain caused by our love. A love that we would have burned everyone around us with. A love that would have eventually made us hate each other along the way.