17 Who Killed Fiona?

Please note!!!

(This chapter is tragic and brutally psychologically disturbing as subjects like Grief, therapy, abuse and financial scams are prominent.. If it makes you uncomfortable, it's okay to skip this chapter and read the next.)

Elon is not your favourite character, and most likely you've forgotten he's a character. After all, he shouldn't be important to the plot.

How much of a fuck does anyone give to a victim who is stuck up in a shell he refuses to leave?

Elon was 19 when he found love and not the teenage fuckery you're thinking. It was real love and it was branded in the gorgeously human skin of Fiona.

They understood that on a planet of over 7 billion people, it was never any clearer that they were made for each other.

When they were 21, they got married, and it was a low-key kind of wedding.

Elon, being much of a cynic who held great contempt for most things humans found "chic" was in the company of a woman who couldn't be more happier with the idea of a wedding of just them both in the warm presence of their worried families.

You know, Hobbes might have been right. Love really beats crack and it's a drug that causes the world to doubt and question the frailty of your sanity. In Elon and Fiona's case, the world did.

Marriage can be bliss, too. It depends on the people. Sadly, Liam could never believe that marriage with the one you love is anything besides trauma and dysfunctionality.

"Hey, baby. What do you think of this investment? Could be the big break we've been waiting for, you know. We could get our dream house and maybe have that kid like we've always wanted." Fiona said with a daydreaming smile that Elon basked his entirety in. She was smiling from ear to ear and he never wanted to see that beauty fade from her cheeks.

Elon understood that wedding vows sucked. Only one ever mattered to him, "come better, come worse, we're riding our way, hand in hand into the sunlight".

Fiona couldn't bear to look at him with those eyes of guilt and shame and there didn't seem like any sunlight awaited them, so she strolled singularly into the darkness. That didn't just happen overnight.

"I don't know, Fiona.. something about it just doesn't add up. We are gonna be okay, and we don't need any sus investments to make that happen." Elon said as he rubbed Fiona's hair which was right on his chest as they stayed in bed.

"I really can't imagine a life without you." Fiona replied with a kind of sincerity that was dripping in love.

"I know, baby. Life sucks, but just this once, it gave me the biggest gift there was, and that's you. I can't imagine a life without you either." Elon replied as his words wrapped their nakedness with warmth.

Of course, Fiona did her research. She was beautiful and a whole lot of words that started with 25 other letters, but she wasn't dumb. Investing their combined life savings couldn't have been a dumb choice.

The worst thing about surprises is that you never know when they become secrets, and secrets are the beginning of any Rome about to fall.

How could an intention so genuine become a decision so fatal?

Fiona was going to reward Elon's love with a life he and her had always wanted, and she was delighted that things were falling into place. At least, until they weren't.

Fiona, a nursing student who took a part time job at the burger shop not too far from their a-little-below-average home got back to the house with a burst of excitement that the bulb above her head could only reciprocate with a flicker.

"Okay. Cheese!! Mummy and daddy are gonna raise you right, and you'll be the product of the world's finest love story." Fiona said as she massaged her right palm slowly on her belly with her other hand navigating the laptop that sat on the table right in front of her.

There was no doubt. There was no fear. There was just love and thrill, and Fiona could have sworn that the ultimate topping on this cake was a warm kiss from Elon the moment he returned from work.

Things turn sour, and sadly because we're only human, we hardly ever know how soon the bitterness kicks in.

Fiona didn't spend eternity in paradisiacal bliss before reality threw her a card that had broken glasses that pierced every part of her skin that had blood in it.

"Ohhh, No. Please, God. No." Fiona shouted loudly with a tears-provoking voice without restraint. That was the last time she screamed, and that was the last time her voice outweighed her grief.

Fiona had been scammed and this was a scar too brutal to be healed.

Time heals all wounds in the end? That's the only bullshit quote Aristotle never said as he understood how devilish a lie that was.

Opportunities are costly, and when they're furnished in a quilt of deceit too hard to resist, they become the weapons of our own destruction.

One thing died in that cold room that very instant- hope. Three things died less than an hour after. One of the three barely had the chance to be kissed by a father or to be touched by a mother.

Fiona couldn't put Elon through the horrors of her mistakes. Maybe she was a coward. It's the 21st century. Who isn't?

She tethered her neck and whatever was left of her shuddering breaths of guilt plus her weighted face of hate and regrets to the hook that offered her pity from the ceiling.

Elon got home that day. He met a family. He felt chills, the kind that caused his body hairs to levitate, but it was colder on her body than it was in the house.

We are taught to believe in Angels, myths and miracles, but at the end of the day, Earth is just Hell standing on a cliff we can't behold.

"********. **********

Elon, with heavily teary eyes, sniffled before the presence of the others in this support group who wore forlorn faces half as sad as his.

"Uhmm.. I couldn't save her. I couldn't save our child. What kind of person am I? I had just one job…Love your wife. How hard was that for me?" Elon continued with a veined-red face covered in sweat, tears and light phlegm.

"I'm sorry, Elon." A very sympathetic voice said to Elon with silence sweeping through the room till all that was left was cold, brutal, haunting grief.

"I wake up every morning devoid of hope and still I check for her shadows in dark places and her ghost in broken nightmares. Hate. A little less than grief, that's all I feel. Why would a man defraud another for a life not earned? My Fiona didn't kill herself, a scammer's greed did. Who are we, really?" Elon said with what appeared like flaming eyes and a voice forged in the furnace of vengeance.