Rose Thorns & Love Letters

50 ➪ Love, Comforted

•Camilla•

The cold air touches my face and reminds me for the thousandth time that I have been crying. The warm presence of Phoenix walking behind me reminds me for the thousandth time that all my hard work for the last two months of trying to get over this man was in vain.

And the dull ache right in the middle of my chest that pulses every time I am reminded that I can breathe reminds me for the thousandth time that I don't care.

Phoenix is not the best person on earth and I plan on letting him know that. But, the fact that my father somehow managed to be even worse than the man who drugged and kidnapped me on our second encounter? That is an achievement.

The whole entire time, for a whole nineteen years, I thought my father was working with properties and maybe finance. That's how I thought it was possible for him to snag the castle.

But, of course I was wrong. The man worked in the Mafia. Like some sort of mob boss, or something.

God, what a cliché.

The truths that Phoenix came out with on the plane still hasn't quite settled in my brain. If this was a coincidence, I'd call it a small world. Two people who have enemies for potential father in-laws. But, I know better now. I know the reason Phoenix came into my life and to say it doesn't sting would be more than just a white lie.

Phoenix is the only person I let all the way in. I spent days on end just being with him. I found a special kind of comfort in just being with him and it was a place I never wanted to leave.

I wanted him all to myself because I thought we knew each other, loved each other. Come to find out I had barely scratched the surface with him. He wasn't the man I had come to love and deeply care for.

Still love and deeply care for.

Feelings don't erase overnight, and the atomic bomb he dropped on me on the plane nearly wiped me out for good. Watching the man I never loved but called Father die by the woman I could have loved as a grandmother was not enough, apparently.

Not when the story behind the real Phoenix came pretty damn close.

I needed space on the plane. Phoenix respected that. The flight wasn't as long as I would have liked, but I stayed in one of the bedrooms trying to recollect the bearings I watched shatter and fall after every one of his words came out.

I would hear the occasional footfalls outside of the room, but I brushed it under the carpet and assumed it was staff only doing their job.

Imagine my surprise when the plane had finally landed and I opened the door to find Phoenix pacing the corridor like a mad man.

"Was it you?" I had asked him when he finally noticed me watching him.

"Was what me?" He responded with trepidation I had never heard in his voice. I wasn't sure whether I quite enjoyed it.

"The footsteps outside the door."

I was only met with a silence that served as a perfect answer.

"The whole time?" I asked, a glutton for making myself feel terrible.

This time, he didn't only stay silent. He tucked his hands into his pockets and looked away, avoiding my gaze. That was answer enough.