Redemption

Chapter XVIII

The hours lost meaning for Safiye after Renato left. The days became nights, and the nights a reminder of what she lived with him. In the mornings, instead of floating in the air to the bathroom, she dragged her feet, and burnt her skin under the shower trying to feel some warmth. She went to her couch after forcing herself to eat, to watch old movies that no longer could make herself forget her reality. At some point, she would try to read, but her mind couldn't create another picture that wasn't the one of the man she loved, and she found herself reading the same line numerous times. When her stomach ached for food, she returned to the kitchen to eat cold leftovers from the refrigerator, and once she was over, returned to the couch to watch the same movie from the morning, while biting her bottom lip, and picking up the skin of her thumb with her pointing finger. She flinched at the sudden ardor, and looking at her hand she realized she had picked the skin further than she intended, but decided to ignore, and to continue playing with her other hand. Only when her body ached from being in the same position for hours, she walked upstairs feeling the lack of someone guiding her to her room. She sat in bed and looked to the right to see herself breaking into the room, with Renato following her from behind, as they laughed. He caught her and spun with her on his arms, until he lost balance and both fell to the ground. The blissful memory vanished when she turned off the lights, and as she laid in bed, his confession haunted her until falling asleep.

A week later, her routine was broken when Coy and his father knocked on the door to her house, expressing their concern for her well-being. She opened the door and crumbled at the image of both standing in front of her. She extended her arms, and for a long moment reunited as a family in a single hug, aware that it was the last. "I'm so sorry!" She cried, and they could only comfort her until she was able to calm down. She wiped the trail her tears left behind, and with a forced smile invited them in, but Mr. Wood knew her like he knew his son, and asked her when was the last time she had fresh air. She raised her shoulders, and listened at his playful nagging, before sitting next to him in the front of her house.

Even when the topic of conversation could be painful for her to deal with, the presence of Coy and his father, was enough for her to feel the support necessary to talk about her sorrow. The gentle breeze brought to her the bittersweet memories from the days she chose to be blind to Renato's strange behavior, and constant mood change, because she was desperate to fill the void in her chest with somebody's love. She didn't address any specific situation from the start of their life together after he had moved into her house, but described him as a furic animal that drained his wrath on her. But how one day, she was the one to explode, and how according to him, it was the day he realized she was different from the perspective he had of her, "In other words, he said he saw me as an idiot with cause, not because I was truly one." She looked down at the wooden floor, and the silence between them allowed for her tears to be heard, as she remembered the days she loved him with every cell in her body, and how words become meaningless because they had their hands and the wind to speak for themselves.

It was more painful for her to remember those blissfuls days than the tragic ones that followed, because they were a reminder of how she hadn't lost her love because she never had one. He did say to her that those days were sacred to him, but he couldn't claim he loved her as much as she loved him, because he was still learning to love. She summarized those days with a simple phrase, "We had a very peaceful month, that we lost when his colleague obsessed over us." She explained how Renato had literally a partner in crime, and how the man that tried to rapture her, and who later assaulted them downtown, was the same person, wishing to hurt Renato at a personal level. She explained how after Renato murdered the man, he subsequently had nightmares and night terrors, and how he stopped sleeping after he accidentally slapped her, leading to numerous hallucinations that revealed the twisted state of his mind.