Chapter 1
Chapter TextPart 1
The gate of hell is in front of me.
Inviting.
Tempting.
It is open and I see across it a place where I can find peace.
It's dark and cold but I feel I can get into it, for ever.
Because I cannot feel anything now.
My hands don't touch, my eyes don't see, my lungs don't breathe and my body is no more alive.
It's the darkness of my house that envelopes me so tight.
It's my personal hell.
I've kept this house intact for years, like I was not living here for real, like I was only controlling it, not moving, not dreaming, not wanting to live anymore if my family was not with me.
And they came to talk, they stayed to keep me alive.
Alice, did she already know she was gone?
Is she waiting for me on the other side, the day I drive too druggy, that I fall in a trap, that I am in the line of a bullet, so simply, no pain at all, just cross the gate once and forever.
I'm a fool.
I know it.
I've let her in this house. In me, in my brain, in my body, in my heart.
It's hard now to cut all the pieces of her from me.
I need a precise surgery, sharp knife, blood and all.
She's cut off my child from her.
Five minutes of routine for the doctor. Sedation, antibiotic, abortion, painkiller.
A life has been killed. My life.
She didn't care if the baby was mine or of a perfect stranger.
Maybe she's already done it years ago, there are women who use abortion as a kind of protection, I know.
The truth is I don't know anything about her, apart what seldom slips from her lips.
She lied to me. She was listening to the changes in her body. She refused sleeping pills. She stopped snugs. She wrote the list of food to avoid.
Oh, how good she played on me.
I was deaf, dumb, blind.
I fell in her trap so wholly, lost in a joy I'd never hope to feel again.
I was happy, so happy, for one single perfect day.
Things will go well, she'll live with me, she'll bear our child, she'll see me again because we'll be parents.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
She said she loves me and her words have only further push me toward the abyss.
How could she love me and hurt me at the same time?
I want to bang my head against a wall until my brain spills out from the wound.
I need air. Now.
I hate this house, I thought it was a haven for my family, it's my dungeon now.
Out of here, out soon, out now.
I drive on autopilot, my work is all I got now, maybe it can betray me with a much desired bullet and I get the end to my pain.
What's the point of living, having lost all my offspring?
I'm a failure, a complete one.
I trusted them both, let them take care of my children and both have destroyed everything.
Alice.
Saga.
I was wrong twice. Why did I allow myself the risk to love again?
It was an unplanned love, but it grew on me faster that a summer storm.
Eight years ago I had hopes, I was younger, after the shock I thought I'd find them, soon, somehow.
I imagined in a year I'd find the answer.
Two, four, six, eight years with nothing.
I had pills and the club and my life become a living nightmare, until she came.
Beautiful, uncomplicated, understanding.
Everything I need to find the truth.
I was loosing hope, my sleeping pills had to be stronger and stronger to conquer my demons.
I lied to my doctor, telling him about frequents night shifts and the need to grab a fast rest every time I could.
He believed me, also when I told him I forgot sleeping pills in a hotel room during a case away or spilled them on the floor. To get more sooner, to hide the abuse. How easy.
I can talk to people, they use me in hostage crisis but I cannot talk to those close to me.
If I had told Saga how I did feel about her and our child maybe she'd have understood something more about me. Or she'd run away faster than her car. But I could have tried.
I'm over forty, a widow, an ex father, just wanting what I longed for eight long years.
I remember the night she tried to kill herself, my crazy drive across the bridge, looking for her, desperate I've let her down.
I didn't lied, she never asked me about the drugs. And I wanted to stop, tried to stop, after I opened up myself to her.
If I had the strength to tell her all the truth, like the first time she entered my house.
If.
If.
A life of if. And I cannot bear it anymore.
She had split me in two, half I hate her, half I hate myself.
For hoping, for trusting her.
Saga never lied to somebody, how could she lie to me?
Why did she tell me she was carrying my redemption if she had already decided to erase it?
A crazy part of my mind was sure it would have been a boy.
I didn't know where it came from, but I imagined to play with him in the park with a ball.
To buy little soldiers and build Lego cars.
I wanted that boy more than my life, I'd accepted to die myself, if I had to choose.
He'd lived, hopefully a better life than mine; a part of me would have remained alive in him.
I could keep on, thinking my girls were dead, because he was my hope.
Now all my life has been drained from my body,
I'm a dried tree, one with no roots and no branches to grow again.
I'm gone, forever.
I'm dead inside.
I can walk. A foot after the other, endless sequence.
I can eat. Mouthfuls of meaningless food, without taste.
I can work. Little white candies keep me up all day again. I'm a good detective, I have proofs, I find the link for the case.
I can screw. Pick up the first blonde I find in the club, take her in our bed, to erase Saga's scent.
It isn't love, neither sex, nor lust, just the way to deceive myself I don't care anymore about Saga.
This body of mine is empty inside.
A shell with no pearl.
A heart with no blood.
I see the woman hanging from the door, her pulse is gone, I heard a movement inside the house, I notice the red light before the gun shoot.
A trap.
Bullet come to me, I'm ready, take me.
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