Lethal Obsession

40.

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." ― Socrates

"At any given moment, you have the power to say: This is not how the story is going to end." ― Christine Mason Miller

"If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to all others, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism." ― Erich Fromm

"But you'll always be my hero
Even though you've lost your mind"

- Love the way you lie Part II – Rihanna ft. Eminem

Chapter 40

The silence was unbearable. For a long time, we were just standing frozen, as if time had stopped. A gentle breeze ran somewhere far away, and the starry sky lost its last guide. The atmosphere was eerie and paralyzingly frightening.

Watching Mateo's motionless body made my blood run cold. His stare was fixed on my eyes and it seemed as if he was looking through me. He looked shocked as if he didn't understand what was happening, like a small child to whom someone said no for the first time.

"What do you mean you can't?" He whispered, still not understanding the weight of my words. Maybe he didn't even want to understand, maybe it was a way for him to deal with what had happened. Whatever it was, nothing could change the fact that the decision had been made and that every atom of my body told me it was the right one.

"Mateo, I love you, but-" I started in a trembling voice, but he interrupted me, letting out a humorless laugh.

"Love me? You have a strange way of showing it," he spat venomously.

He got up at the speed of light and looked at me in disbelief. He was so close to me that for the first time in so long I noticed how much bigger and stronger he was, that he could destroy me with one movement of his hand. I swallowed, suddenly aware of the gravity of the situation I was in.

"I know you don't share my opinion, but this is not the time for a wedding or anything for that matter," I tried to reason with him and get out of the problem I got myself into in the most painless way.

"It's not? And when is it, baby girl?" He asked me angrily. "The only thing I'm absolutely sure of is that I love you and it will be like that forever."

"I understand that, but in the future, now is not the time." I was ready to tell him anything just to stop him from pushing further and change his mind. I could not take the step he wanted. I wasn't ready neither physically nor mentally, for it. He was the only person I had left, but at the very thought of going that far, something in me stopped me.

"Why not? It's not as if any of us will have someone else in the future. If you're thinking about it, get it out of your head right now. You're not going anywhere, ever. You are mine, forever." He told me seriously, threatening me in a way.

Somewhere deep down, I was aware I had no way out, that I would be his forever. Even if I didn't want to, he wouldn't let me go, and when it came to him, I didn't stand a chance.

"I don't want to leave you, I just don't want to get married," I told him in despair, throwing my hands up.

"You told me we weren't married..." he said vaguely, to which I looked at him in confusion.

"What?"

"You said that we can't have a baby because we are not married and you were right, we should be a real family, legally too. So what's the fucking problem now?" Although the tone of his voice was sharp, he still didn't shout at me. Yet, that was far worse.