Deep down he didn’t believe it, not really. He knew it was impossible. But the fear in her eyes had been so real, real enough to make him doubt his instincts. Real enough to worry for her.
Everything felt wrong.
Everything.
His heart, his head, his guts, they all screamed at him. But the scream was dull, a muted scream of resistance that he couldn’t fathom.
The Delores he knew wouldn’t harm anyone, no less the children that she adored. Which only led to the conclusion that she was much sicker than he’d perhaps realised. That perhaps her schizoaffective disorder had reached a new crescendo and there was no turning back for her. He’d read up on it; he knew what could happen in severe cases. His own fear had morphed into the overwhelming belief that he would be impotent to help her if things had gotten that bad. That she would be carted away on a stretcher never to see the light of day again.
A sickening feeling had sunk into the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t ignore it, though he had tried to. It was why he hadn’t phoned Paul yet, why he hadn’t gone into his room and turned on his laptop. He didn’t want to find out the truth, because the truth wouldn’t set him free. It wouldn’t set either of them free. It would chain them both in hell. A lifelong sentence that neither of them could escape from. Because the sort of madness she was spewing was something you couldn’t come back from.
Elijah loved Delores. He loved her with everything that he had. But he doubted that love was enough to save her from herself.
Elijah backed out of the parking spot and steered back on to the highway, heading to a small restaurant he’d seen outside of town. He didn’t want to be spotted, but he needed to get out of the car. He needed to walk, to think and work out what the problem was. There was a nagging feeling inside him that told him something was incredibly wrong.
The heat of the day and a softthwooshsound as cars passed each other seeped in through the open window. He drove and drove, and before he knew it he had driven to the edge of town and had kept on going.
Sweat poured down his back in a river of panic.
He couldn’t lose her.
He couldn’t protect her.
He couldn’t help her.
He’d gotten it all wrong, he realised.
He’d thought he was her knight in shining armour. He’d thought he was her hero that had come to save the day, to protect her from the beast that lived in her house. The bully. The problem. The monster. The husband.
But Elijah had gotten it all wrong. Michael wasn’t the problem, Delores was. She had been the problem all along. Elijah had just been too blind to really see. Blinded by love and lust and desire and all those other emotions that both rocked and ruled a man’s world.
Elijah had been played by Delores.
Conned by his own heart.
He’d been misled into thinking that she both needed and wanted to be saved. But there was no saving her. At least not by him. Only doctors could help her. Locking her away to stop her harming both herself and others was the only cure for her.
His eyes filled with angry tears. His cell phone slid across the dashboard, mocking him once more and showing him his fears.
His father had been sick. Sicker than anyone had ever imagined. The alcohol had poisoned his brain. It had made him unable to accept the responsibilities of his choices, the problems he delivered to others’ doors. It wasn’t just the drinking that was the problem, it was the ignorance to the problem itself. His neglect of the truth.
His mother had hidden it, the truth. For years she’d protected her sick husband from their friends, their family, from Elijah. And then for years after she had forced Elijah to do the same thing. It was a cruel thing to do. For a mother to trick her child into believing lies.Even after all these years, he thought angrily,I’m still being tricked by love.
But love makes us crazy.
Loves makes us blind, and ignorant.
Love breaks us down.
“Love will kill us all in the end,” Elijah said through the blur of tears. “Love will kill us all.”
Chapter Thirty-Two.
Delores.
He had left her.
She didn’t blame him, not really. It hurt, of course, but nothing hurt worse than what was happening in her mind. Nothing hurt worse than the knowledge that she carried around with her. No, nothing hurt more than that.
