Chapter 8.3 - "Decisions"
"I have something to tell you Zeyana, something I should have talked about a long time ago, but I couldn't find the courage to do it. I lied to you too much and I know it's too late now to ask for forgiveness, but I'd like to tell you what I felt, what I feel every day and why I have acted this way so far.
By now you are one of my victims and I will never be able to repay you for what you have done for me ... I appreciate it, I appreciated from the first day your help and above all your attention that managed to make me feel good despite all that pain that it devoured me every second. It's not true that sex with you only served to forget my past or to satisfy some need... our closeness has always brought me comfort, even when we were arguing; seeing you, talking to you made me feel stable in some way, even if the world around us has come to the point of destroying itself and making us collapse with it. Zeyana your I love you saved me from that big mistake, your caresses from going mad, our memories prevented me from choosing the worst path even when you were absent to fight.
I never told you but you are everything that I am not: a strong and spectacular woman, responsible, rational and meticulous… you love, you do not wish to destroy, you protect, while I bring only chaos, both in the my life than in that of others.
I could never reach you, but let me tell you that choosing to risk your life for someone like me was a really stupid mistake: I am a coward, a failure who did not save her family, who did not take revenge on her executioners, who allowed herself to be captured, who was beaten, insulted, mistreated wherever she went ... until you arrived, with that armor of yours as sparkling as your hair and the most fascinating eyes I have ever seen. I have a weakness for you, a weakness that prevents me from getting too close. I am afraid to lead you with me into that chasm of my past that still haunts me and I would rather die than do it ... but maybe it has already happened, I have already made this mistake. The umpteenth fault that afflicts me and hurts those around me.
The other night for the first time I was able to think clearly, without finding myself crying or screaming like crazy, and maybe the reason I was able to do it was your closeness. I forced your guards to let me stay in your room ... luckily Keira hasn't abandoned me yet, without her I wouldn't know what to do; allowed me to sleep with you. I looked at your long lashes and the features of your face, wondering how it was possible that such an enchanting woman had fallen in love with me. Your hair was always so soft, I admit I have some sort of obsession with you ... if you want to define it that way. Every time I look at you, I can't take my eyes off you, you catch all my attention. You and Fiamma are similar because of this but I know it's different, because I still want to kiss and hold you in my arms, touch you, spend the night together and if I think about all the harm I've done to you ... I just want to get it over with, I would like to understand what I deserve, how I can redeem myself. I have never written so many words together, I did not like to do it even when I was little, I preferred to go out and play with my brothers and my friends ... I was really hard to keep in check, to control when I was having fun. Who knows how you were as a child Zey ... I've wondered several times, but it would have been impossible for me to become your friend then. I am poor, I can't even define myself as a person, there are too many pieces of me that I have lost along the way and not even your love would be able to bring them back, saving me from all this sadness. Zey ... my dear Zey, what I'm trying to tell you is that I can't choose anymore, I can't do anything else for myself, but you can still decide and I want you to put yourself first this time. You have to stop doing only as others want, abandon all those masks, tell you one who has done nothing but fix them on her face all her life...! It suffocated me and I lost my voice without realizing it: nothing I said seemed true, it was as if I had forgotten who I really was and I don't even know if I'm interested in finding myself. I think I died a long time ago and what I am now is nothing more than a ghost of how I was then.
I want to tell you a secret: as a child I didn't want to become a witch, I hated it. The women in my family kept saying it was a great honor and a gift from the spirits, but the idea of bowing to someone's will bothered me. I was a free soul, I was the only person in my family who wanted to travel all over the place and discover new places, meet new people ... maybe if I listened to them and not my wishes, now I wouldn't be here and they would still be alive. Even if in my life there are many ifs and many buts, a certainty exists, it is you Zey ... you have been my certainty from the moment we met and for all the time of our coexistence, even if in the last period I moved away from you. I was afraid of getting too involved, I was afraid of hurting you, hurting others, causing problems or damaging your image and your power ... I'm terrified Zey. Keira says that I can still do something, that I can change the world if I want, and Fiamma is convinced that Nature has not completely abandoned me ... but the only thing I can think about is you Zeyana and the pain I feel for myself, the respect I have for you and for the feelings you have for me, prevent me from trying once again to kill myself, to put an end to this horrible and tragic being, which is me.
I would rather die by your hand, I want to do it in your arms and that your eyes and your sweet smile are the last thing I see in the world.
The sixteenth day of the Fall "
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I stood up, wiping away the remaining tears and walked towards the tower, wondering what made Alex change like that: Could I trust it to be real? I was afraid that she had truly become a ghost and that I was dreaming. Maybe I still had a chance, maybe all was not lost.
When I reached the top of the tower, ignoring fatigue and pain, I threw open the door, leaving it open and walking towards the slender figure that was facing one of the two windows on the top floor of the tower. It was evident that she hadn't eaten in days.
"What does all this mean? " I lifted the ruined paper towards her, but she didn't move, she didn't even answer. I couldn't stand her way of unloading her fate on my shoulders, without a fight, without ever wanting anything. Had she stopped lying? I didn't know, not quite yet.
"I don't know who I fell in love with honestly ... what should I tell you now, after what I've read? Do you think I can accept having to chain you to me to keep you alive ...? I would never do it and if you think the opposite, it means that you have understood nothing about me!" I threw the booklet and some of its pages mingled on the ground. I was furious, now tears of anger were running down my face but it didn't matter at that moment. Alex now looked at me in amazement, taken by surprise by my screams.
"Tell me the truth Alex ... you've never really looked at me, am I wrong? You always pretended to want me, you clung to that belief only to overcome the guilt you would have felt by cheating on me... I don't deserve this, I don't want your compassion! I was a fool to hope that you too would have felt something for me one day..." I collapsed to the ground, now without strength.
"I fell in love with a ghost ... it's really true."
"Zey, Zey what are you saying!"
"The truth! Tell me you love me if I'm wrong!"
I stared into her eyes, pulling her back after making her realize that in reality she was convinced she had to feel something for me and even in that moment of fragility, when she had written those pages, she had not been entirely truthful.
"Alex I would never hate you, but you can't ask me to be the reason that keeps you alive, to be part of another pact where the terms are the exchange of your life for my forgiveness ... I don't want you to die, but you would not really live, you would be a doll without a soul, an empty container and I see it in your eyes, the reflection of what you were and are no longer, all the despair that leads you to desire death..."
"Zey I don't know what to do anymore ... I don't think I have the courage to try again... my family ... I can't have lost it! I was sure it would work, I trusted what my grandmother told me, I promised her I would go back to them and now the only way to do it is to die! I have nothing else to live for but you!"