“Because maybe I could have saved her if I had just called an ambulance.”
“She didn’t deserve it,” I tell her, “But if she passed that quickly, it’s unlikely she would have made it anyway.”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
“I’m not,” I assure her, “I don’t think you should feel anything, but I understand the pressure. I used to feel it too.”
“What do you feel?” She asks me.
“When I kill people?” I clarify.
She nods her head.
“Nothing anymore.”
I watch my thumb brush over her knuckles, that anger still bubbling under my skin, begging for a way out but I keep it there for the time being, I’ll let it out soon enough.
“But you should know, Willow. You didn’t kill her; she had a heart attack. There may have been the smallest of chances for you to save her but truthfully, I’m glad you didn’t. You shouldn’t feel guilty for that choice, she made your life hell and got what she deserved. Believe me, a heart attack is far kinder than what I would have done to her.”
“That’s the thing, I don’t feel guilty for not helping her,” She whispers, “And that doesn’t make me a good person, Sebastian. And I think she haunts me because I could have saved her, and I didn’t.”
“She’s dead, Willow,” I tell her honestly, “You’re haunting yourself.”
She snaps her head back, eyes wide like I’ve just offended her but I’m only telling the truth. It isn’t people who haunt us, it isn’t theirghosts, it’s what they left behind, what they left us with that haunts us. We hear their voices and remember their face in everything we see because they left pieces of themselves behind. For good and for bad.
In some cases, they haunt us to remind us about happiness, or joy, to remind us to be who we were always meant to be and in other cases, they’re here to be a constant reminder of the impossibly high standards they held us to. They remind us of our faults, they tell us we are wrong, or we are not following the rulesthat they carefully laid out for us.
In Willow’s case, her mother is reminding her every day that she is nothing but a trophy, a pretty piece to have on a man’s arm. She’s telling her over and over that she’s a failure. My heart fucking breaks for my girl because even with all of this, she’s damn fierce and strong but it’s here, with the future of motherhood ahead of her, a baby growing in her belly that she believes she could be anything like the woman that raised her.
Now I didn’t know Willow’s mother or any of her family but from these stories, she’s ten times the person they ever were.
She’s kind and funny and caring. She’s strong and protective. Sheloves. Her heart is on her damn sleeve, and she has a fucking personality that people gravitate toward.
She is the damn sunshine, the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
There isn’t a single ounce of darkness within her, she may believe there is but there isn’t. She saved herself from a monster. And perhaps I am not the right person to weigh in on her story, not when I have so much blood on my own hands but we, as a human race, are programmed to save ourselves in certain situations.
Putting yourself in danger to save innocents from a burning building is different to calling an ambulance on a person who has abused you most of your life.
Willow not calling an ambulance when her motherhad a heart attack isn’t something, I personally believe, her soul will be weighed for.
And this woman had gone through enough, e-fucking-nough.
“Come here,” I request gently.
Tears roll down her cheeks, but she comes willingly, and I fold my arms around her, holding her to my chest.
I let her stay like that for a few moments, using my body to draw life back into hers because if there is anything I am good for, this, with her, is my purpose.
“You’re an incredible human being, Willow,” I tell her softly, “What your mother did to you was abuse. You were abused and you’re suffering with those consequences, for her actions and not yours. You saved yourself Willow.”
“I don’t want to be like her,” She sniffles into my shirt.
“You never will be,” I assure her, “You saved yourself Willow, you’re your own fucking hero.”
“How do you do that?” She asks after a few beats of silence.
“What, Red?” I ask.
