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Chapter 5- I Loved Him

            As soon as I had gotten my mind and tears off of Vaughn, I heard my dad walk through the front door. I heard his dark and heavy steps coming closer and closer to my door. I waited, knowing that any excuse I would make wouldn't work. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I stared at a spot on the wall; a piece of paint was peeling. The chipped corner was delicate but strong. The crack that forced it to split seemed to be growing and becoming more powerful. Finally the footsteps stopped outside my door and I stopped thinking about the paint peeling away from the wall, peeling away from life.

"Sydney?" He opened the door, causing it to creak, and peeked his head inside.

"Hi, come in. How are you?" I tried making small talk before ending up in a pool of tears. He knew better than to trust my antics of changing the subject and sat next to me, silent.

            He sat there next to me and closed his eyes. I wanted to know what he was thinking about, why was he so silent. His silence got to me and that's when I noticed what he was trying to do. He was trying to force the words out of me through my own useless silence that I held onto with such persistence. I crept up from my indented seat on my bed and walked out the door, leaving him there, defeated. Before I was two steps outside the door, he grabbed my arm, gently and forced me back to my spot on the bed, closing the door behind us.

"Sydney, I talked to Sloane today and managed to get you a week's vacation. He noticed how stressed out you are and how unlike yourself you have become. I also cleared a vacation with Devlin as well." He stared at me, trying to force a sign of emotion from my face. I showed no sign of excitement or sorrow. He kept on going, thinking if he kept talking long enough, I might have an opinion on the matter.

"Tomorrow, if you want to we can meet somewhere for lunch. What do you think?" I didn't reply, even though I thought it was a good idea. "Maybe that new café down by the ocean or Francie's? Anyway, Sydney, please talk." No, I thought, but I didn't want to speak it. He would get my answer from the deafening sound of silence.

"Sydney, I know you weren't working late. I know where you were, I can see it on your face. I can see it in your eyes. You don't have to lie to me or block me out. I know a lot more than you think I do, I knew before he was gone." He had lost and embraced the fact that he had, and was trying to get something for it. The last sentence scarred me. Why did he have to bring him up so soon into the conversation? I could feel the tears warming up, ready to break in at any second.

"Where was I?" He couldn't have possibly known. Nobody knows, except for me and at times I don't even know when I go there. He had driven the silence out of me, I had to prove him wrong, and I have to be right. I have to be right sometime.

"Seeing him. Sydney it has been a year, get on with your life. He was just your handler, and probably some childish crush that meant nothing. You have to get on with your life. He knew the risks that were involved with his job in the CIA." His voice kept getting louder and booming. I couldn't help it any more. The familiar tears started draining their selves from my sleep deprived eyes. I wanted to slap him for what he had said about Vaughn, I had already lied about Vaughn today. I couldn't disappoint him again.

"Just for your information I was seeing him today, again. You are right, as always. I see him every day and it was not a silly crush. And he was something, somebody. Not a nothing. He was never a nothing and never will be." I couldn't believe what I was saying, what I was screaming at my father. What I was confessing.

"He was not just my handler, he was more. He was the only person I could ever truly trust. And I killed him. I killed him, not the CIA. He didn't die because of his job. He died because of me. And I miss him. Yes, I should probably get on with my life, but I can't forget about him, like he was never in my life. And yes, you might say that he wasn't. But .. but he was. He was a huge part of my life. I woke up every day happy knowing that I would see him, now I'm lost in a world full of darkness and cruelty. I loved him. Are you hearing that clear enough, I LOVED HIM!!!!!"

I was standing now, the tears streaming madly down my raging face. I couldn't lie, I let it all out. All the hidden secrets, all the lies, all the hurt stashed away at the bottom of my heart. My heart beating rapidly, my eyes wide with anguish stared at him making sure he got every word that leaked from my mouth. I all of a sudden felt weak, too weak to stand, to weak to be.

"I loved him, I loved him." Dropping down to the edge of the bed, falling on the cold floor, supporting my feeble body, I kept mumbling the words that I never spoke to the person they were meant to be spoken to. Shaking and heaving, I sat crumpled, while my father watched on in awe on his tormented girl. Unable to comprehend anything I had said, he sat and stared at me crying, dying inside, for minutes. Neither of us moved, until he couldn't take the sight of me any longer.

"Sy-Sydney, I'm sorry. I ..I didn't know you felt that strongly about him." I could hear his fingers fumbling and then felt him move towards the door. "I'll call you tomorrow about lunch. Bye." He left as soon as he had come; I had never seen him act like that before, even after Mom apparently died. Shaking my head, not wanting to think about anything with any value, I turned off the lamp shining brightly into my dim little world.

            I found the energy to somehow crawl into my bed and wrap the soft, warm covers around my cold body. My thoughts circling around nothing. Closing my eyes, shutting out the world around me, I try to think of anything except for what happened today. I can't, his face still looms over my eyes, the roses still vividly red, and that man in the cemetery still black and hollow watching me. Rolling over on my side, forcing the covers to drape out any light, I fall into a deep, unsettling sleep, all the while seeing his face. Haunting me, forcing me to live a lie. The tears still in a torrential downpour, I silently whisper the words I wish he could hear, "I love you." The hunger for him apparent in my coarse throat, in my sore heart, and in my shadowy eyes that saw him in everything.

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