The Angel in Hell

P I L L S

Mad world by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews<3

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The entire family sat awkwardly around the dining table anxiously nibbling on croissants layered with butter and jam or desperately trying to sip their cups of tea quietly. Elsbeth sat at one end of the table, flipping through a magazine and ignoring eye contact while James sat at the other, humming quietly to himself like a nervous tick as he stirred sugar into his coffee. Venetia was beside Delilah, elbows pressed into the wooden tabletop as she examined some split ends in her hair, pulling them apart from one another and most likely off in some daydream to avoid her current reality. Delilah wished she could switch off that easily but she never could, especially not now as her eyes remained fixated on Felix sitting across from her next to Farleigh.

Felix was prodding at the golden brown flakes of pastry that had fallen from his untouched croissant onto his perfectly porcelain plate. Although he was looking down, Delilah could see the dark hanging circles around his eyes, so pungent it looked as though he had two black eyes. His body was tense but not as strong as it used to be. He had lost a lot of weight and his muscles that used to look so big now, while more defined than ever, were half their size. His hair was crusted with sea salt most likely from his expeditions into the harsh water of the Cornish coast. Pathetic, Delilah thought to herself. How pathetic it was that she found herself feeling bad for the sorry sight of him in front of her. Stupid and pathetic to feel anything but betrayal for Felix Catton, she cursed in her mind. He might be dishevelled now but he didn't have to be, he could have stayed.

'I couldn't have stayed.' He burst out amid the silent room, as if he could read Delilah's thoughts. Nobody replied but everybody heard him. His harsh and broken voice pierced their eardrums with an agonising tear. Delilah grew angry at his outburst. He had no right to defend himself, not yet. Nobody else had their turn to speak, to pierce him with words that made him realise what him leaving did to them. She scoffed in defiance to his remark.

'What?' Felix snapped at Delilah, his eyes shooting beams of pain into her own.

'I just think it's funny how you're acting like you had to leave.' She replied, holding his eye contact and smirking. Her attitude was a front for her pain.

'You don't understand, Delilah.' He spat, as if she was incompetent.

'You don't think i know?!' She hissed back. The tension in the room expanded, it's thick and suffocating fumes almost visible. 'You don't think we all know what you did?' She shouted.

Felix's eyes grew huge with fear. They darted around the room only to find each family member with their eyes locked into him, trying to remain soft towards him but failing. Their eyes told Felix that Delilah was right, they all knew that whatever had happened to Oliver was at the hands of Felix. They knew he was capable of such things and Delilah, looking round the room herself, realised they all knew about Felix's darkness as much as she did.

'No you don't know! You have no fucking idea, none of you do.' His voice was loud and deep, rich with pain and anger and regret and shame. It was a new voice, one he hadn't discovered he had in him until that night.

'Oh please! You know whatever it was we would have helped you. I would have fucking helped you!' Delilah angrily pleaded.

'You. Can't. Help. Me.' Felix was serious this time, still shouting but not with anger, with rage. 'You are the fucking reason i did it.' He laughed now, manically and with a sort of delirious glaze in his eye.

'Enough!' Farleigh barged into the conversation that both Felix and Delilah had forgotten was in front of everyone else.

Despite Farleighs attempts to diffuse the situation it wasn't enough. The two of them, Delilah and Felix, had said too much. Felix had said too much.

'What do you mean?' Delilah almost whispered, her voice shaking and weakened by his rage.

'Yes darling- what do you mean?' Elsbeth lifted her head from the neon colours of the shiny magazine.

'I mean-' His jaw was clenched, his fists screwed tightly in a ball pushing down with force onto the table where hundreds of breakfasts, lunches and dinners had been eaten as a family. His breath hitched slightly and Delilah could see the cogs turning behind his eyes as he decided if now was the moment. Felix didn't know what to say- well- he knew exactly what to say and exactly what it would mean for him and Delilah. He had tried to run away from it, hoping it would blow over as things often did but I didn't this time. Everything from that night was catching up to him, rotting him from the inside out, annihilating him. Oliver and i- we got into an argument over how much time i was spending with Delilah. He was calling her- all sorts of things. And he- he said he knew about the baby, said that he found the tests in her drawer. he-' Felix's eyes filled with red hot tears and his cheeks flushed with fumes of hate. 'He said I didn't know what I was doing but he did and he was going to fix it for me. He had these pills- so many pills- and he shoved them into a bottle of champagne. He told me to give them to Delilah or he would. And i- I saw red. I-' His head fell into his hands as he shook from head to toe. He looked scared. Not of anyone else's opinion, but of himself. 'I smashed the bottle over his head. He fell on the floor and there was so much- so much blood. From his neck, from his head from fucking everywhere. I tried to s-stop the blood but, god- god- fuck it was everywhere, you know? Just everywhere.' He was sobbing now, his tears cascading onto the floor in a waterfall of suffering. 'I left him and ran. He died, didn't he? He died there.' Nobody in the house responded, everyone's eyes red with tears of shock, confusion and pain. 'Didn't he fucking die there?' He screamed out in a murderous whale wound and weaved with every possible ounce of pain a human could feel.

'Yes, Felix. Oliver passed.' James replied, clearing his throat and clutching his newspaper tight to his chest. Felix got up from the table and left the house. 

Felix was forever leaving. Forever running away. Letting his family cut themselves in the glass he left shattered behind, letting Delilah's love for him bleed from her body. And if he kept doing it, leaving Delilah to bleed for him, there would be nothing left for her to lose, to give. Nothing more for him to take from her. Soon, nothing that was Delilah would be his as it once was, not even his child.