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I always knew, deep down inside, right from the beginning I think. I fell too hard, cared too deeply; and things between us were always bound to end in tragedy. One of us was destined to be left shattered and broken, writhing in heart wrenching agony; and I knew it would be me. When I had given myself to him so completely, how could it end any other way with the life that he led?

I would wake every morning and brace myself for word of his death. I would prepare myself for the worst, whilst hoping for the best; even if it seemed as if I’d lost all hope long ago. I knew that I had given myself over to someone who had the capability to hurt me more than anything or anyone ever had before, but I couldn’t walk away. I needed him and he needed me. It was a raw, desperate, passionate binding of souls that needed to run its course, no matter where it led.

And as I stand here over his grave with tears streaming down my face, my stomach knotted, and an empty hollow ache where my heart is supposed to be I realize something. No amount of foresight or knowledge could have ever prepared me for this inevitability. It hurts, it physically hurts and it will always hurt. It’s the kind of pain that lingers a lifetime and never truly fades away; and it will haunt me until the day that we can be together again.

I try to hold back the fresh wave of tears threatening to overcome me, as I hear footsteps approaching from behind. I don’t turn to look at the figure as he places a comforting hand on my shoulder; I already know who it is. Instead I continue to gaze at the eternal resting place of my love, my little remaining composure crumbling as tidal waves of wracking sobs consume me.

“Are you sure you want to go through with this Dani?” He asks me.

“Yes.” I answer through clenched teeth. Still I do not look at him, not wanting to take my eyes off of the grave.

“Danielle, you don’t have to do this.” He tells me. Squeezing my shoulder, in what I can only assume is meant to be comforting. “We can take care of it, there’s no need for you to put yourself through any of this.”

I turn to look at him then, with tear stained cheeks and watering eyes.

“Yes, I do.” I barely manage to get out in a choked whisper. “Nobody knew him like I did. Not even you.”

Turning my gaze back towards the grave once again, I fall to my knees, burying my hands in the fresh earth that entombs the other half of my heart. I’m inconsolable. If he thinks that I will just sit back and do nothing, he is sorely mistaken, and he doesn’t know me at all.

“In time, they tell me I’ll not feel so bad. But I don’t want time to heal me, there is a reason I am like this. I want time to set me ugly and knotted with the loss of you. I won’t smooth you away, I cannot say goodbye, and I will not forget you.” I whisper into the earth, this quote I find myself repeating so often nowadays.

When I am done, when I have emptied myself of all the tears I have left, I force myself to stand, force some semblance of composure. I wipe my eyes, I clench my fists and I steel myself for what is to come next. I push the hurt, the sadness, deep inside and embrace the anger that is forming in its wake. I let it encompass me, flow through every part of my being. There will be time enough to grieve later, right now my need to hurt these people, these monsters, as they’ve hurt me, as they’ve hurt Aiden, is too overwhelming.

I turn to my companion once again. I gaze at him, beseeching him to see me as I am now; how I am no longer the sweet and innocent girl that I was when first we met. Wishing him to see how they have scarred me, marked and marred me. Wishing that he could see inside of my heart, feel my hurt, my sorrow; the agonizing pain that I feel with every breath I take. But most of all, wishing for him feel my resentment, my hatred for all of them.

“They’re going to pay for what they did to him. Every one of them. Every single person who had a hand in helping it happen. When I am done with them they’re going to wish it was you who’d taken care of it.” My voice is so hollow, so void of any emotion whatsoever when I speak; I even scare myself a little.

I stalk past him as he stares at me, in wonder, in fear, in awe; perhaps even all of the above.

I get not ten feet from him when I stop and turn to face him once more, I stare at him hard. “And besides” I remark callously, not caring how my next remark will hurt him, and I know that it will. “Haven’t you already taken care of enough Kae?”

I don’t bother to wait for his response, or for him to join me as I make my way towards the car idling at the roadside. I don’t feel one ounce of guilt for my behaviour; not even with the fact that he is one of the only ones willing to do this for me. As far as I am concerned at the moment, the death of Aiden rests upon his shoulders just as much, if not more, as it does the others. 

I glance over my shoulder one last time as I open the door to the limo, Mikael has gone back to the grave site. Even with his back turned to me I can sense a sadness around him, a sadness I can relate to, and I feel a slight twinge of regret for what I’d just said to him. Perhaps I do care, on some level, that I may have hurt him.

As I slide myself into the seat nearest the door, I am greeted by a sudden muted silence. The kind of silence where you can tell that everyone was talking about you, but stopped the moment you entered; the silence is deafening.

I sit there, hands in my lap, fiddling with my fingers, staring out the window; as they start to whisper amongst themselves once more. The whispers like screams to my sensitive ears. I can see them out of the corner of my eyes, heads together, lips to ears; the way that their eyes shift back and forth so that I will not notice them looking at me, but it’s much too obvious.

Sitting in this car, with a handful of people I’ve met less than a handful of times is awkward. I cannot even remember their names, but they all know mine; they all have an opinion of me, and for the most part the opinion is that this whole mess is all my fault.

It’s a consensus amongst them, if Aiden had never met me, or if I had just left when they told me to; taken the money they offered me to break things off and run. If I had never filled his head with ridiculous notions of a ‘normal’ life, this whole catastrophe wouldn’t have happened. They’re right though, in a sense. If we had never met, things would have imploded for them a long time ago, and this particular tragedy would never have had a chance to occur. He just would have gotten himself, and god only knows who else, killed a lot sooner.

So while they may be right about this one particular incident, they’re wrong about me. I wasn’t his destruction, I was his saving grace, his stability. I was somewhere pleasant for his mind to go when things got crazy, which happened much too frequently. I grounded him and reminded him that there was good left in the world. I GAVE him something to live for, when all he wanted was a means to an end of the madness that he called life. I was his ‘Crazy Angel’, because even though my own life was a complete and utter disaster, I would have gladly taken all of his burdens. I was all of this and more to him, and I know that because he always made a point to tell me so himself.

His life with them was no life. We were going to have, and we should have had, a real life; together.

I lift my head and look at them, solemn faced. Let them whisper, let them speculate, let them judge me and spread lies; because that’s all they’re doing. Throwing false accusations around because they don’t know, and couldn’t even begin to comprehend half of the truth.

The real reason I’m here is still a mystery to them. Not a single one of them, no matter how high they think that they rank in their little world, knows of my plans, or Mikael’s involvement in them; let alone the roles I plan for them to play in this. To them I am just here, the ‘poor’ grieving widow. The stranger who wants to take advantage, to take all that was Aiden’s now that he is gone. This alone gives me some solace, the fact that these people who think so highly of themselves, who act superior to me, will soon merely be my pawns, disposable, a means to an end. They will be treated exactly how they treated Aiden.