Cinderella: A Fractured Fairytale

Forty-Five

Eric's POV

Chapter 45

***

I thought I knew sorrow.

I thought I knew pain.

I thought I knew heartbreak.

But I was wrong.

I had done everything all wrong.

I deserved this.

My hands were shaking but the rest of my body was numb.

Completely, terribly numb. If I had tried to do magic, I wouldn't have been able to.

Since magic was a feeling, it couldn't be performed if someone was suppressing theirs.

I felt the shaking travel up my arms and reach my shoulders. It was hard to breathe.

Why was this happening to me?

Why had I ever told Ana how I felt in the first place?

Now all that was coming from it was sorrow and torment.

A flashback hit me, with such suddenness that I flinched.

Ana's thirteenth birthday. I had held her in secret admiration for quite some time already. I'd sneaked to her house and given her a ruby pendant necklace as a gift.

"Oh, Eric, it's too much!" she said softly, fingering the delicate golden chain with an expression of longing. "I can't take it."

"Please take it." I whispered back. "It's not worth half as much as you are."

She blushed and looked away. "But..."

I smiled. "If you want, you can give me something in return."

Relief flooded her face. "What?"

I opened my mouth to ask for a kiss, then lost my nerve. "... A hug?"

She fairly flew the distance between us and into my arms. "Thank you so much." She whispered in my ear while I held her and tried not to pass out.

I didn't let go for a long time.

Now she was gone.

My heart twisted inside me and I felt the tears coming back.

No. Don't cry. I berated myself. You're not a weakling. You don't cry.

But apparently, I did.

More and more memories came, and I felt the pain more keenly with each one. Ana, head tilted and eyes thoughtful as she listened to me speaking, Ana, eyes sparkling with laughter as I taught her the waltz and she stepped on my foot again, Ana, wide-eyed and bending over me, her voice shaking with sobs as she pleaded for me to wake up. Ana, telling me she loved me.

Ana.

Almost throughout my entire life, she'd been there.

Now she was gone.

And it was all my fault.