CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Revelations

Sonny stepped into the morgue. The cold, antiseptic air presses down on him, triggering his claustrophobia. The chemical scents in his nostrils are a stench that seems to permeate every fiber of his being and sends his stomach into upheaval. His gaze is cold and black, shuttered against the intrusion of any and all emotion. He nods once to the coroner.

The man slid the body draw open. He hesitated, and then drew the wrappings aside.

Sonny looked down. His eyes tried to focus but couldn't. What was in the body bag barely resembles a body. It- she - had been in the water for so long...All he could see clearly was the tangle of blonde hair. The rest – his eyes refused to take in.

His senses swam and his insides revolted. Ice enveloped Sonny's mind and sheathed his soul as he stumbled from the room.

There was no getting around it. No more denying it. Carly was dead. Gone forever, leaving behind a son and a mother that grieved for her. And an ex-husband with her blood on his hands. It was his fault she was dead, after all.

Sonny jerked out of yet another nightmare, seeing Carly's body, face unrecognizable, bloated by the water that it was barely recognizable. He still couldn't accept that it was her. Only the length of blonde hair allowed him to even see that what he was looking at was even still human. The eyes had opened suddenly, and the shock had wrenched him into heart-pounding wakefulness. His heart tried to still it's frantic thumping and his body trembled with the effort.

She's dead... she's dead... she's dead... The words resonated over and over in his soul and the guilt that rose up in him in response drove him from his bed.

Carly was never coming back. Because he hadn't been strong enough, because he hadn't been truthful enough, because he was who he was, Carly was never coming back to her son.

Never.

And it was all his fault.

And now, today, he had to say goodbye. The arrangements had been made, announcements sent out, and now he had to go to a church, where God surely waited to mock him in his guilt and agony and force him to watch as they laid her body to rest.

He lived on, but another one died for his sins. How stupid he had been to think that he had found a new peace and happiness just a few days ago. It was just a cruel twist of fate to give in one hand and then cruelly snatch it away with the other. This was his life. So it had always been, and so it would always be.

Would there ever be rest for him again?

Ever?


Somehow, he made it to the church. Afterwards, Sonny never could remember exactly just how he'd gotten there. He couldn't remember anything about the drive, one moment in he was in the penthouse; he remembered Johnny being at the wheel of the limo as he climbed in, but that was all. The next thing he knew, he was walking into the church on wooden legs.

He was one of the first to arrive at the church. Carly's coffin, and her picture, lay at the end of the aisle, banked by clouds of flowers. Sonny walked heavily to the where the coffin lay. He glanced at her picture. In it, there was no guile, no hint of the schemes that could fill her eyes with a gleam. She might have been smiling at her son, for all the light and happiness in her face. And a stab of pain lanced through him. Sonny reached out and grasped a pew to steady himself against the unsteadiness that rocked his very core.

"Carly..." There was so much he wanted to say and no words at all. All he could do is promise silently that he would take care of her son.

Bobbie arrived, with her brother Luke at his side. The two men had gone their separate ways in the last few years, and Luke had never had much use for his niece once he'd discovered how she'd snuck into town and the schemes Carly had engineered against her own mother. Where Bobbie had at last forgiven her, Sonny doubted that Luke ever had. But in spite of all of that, somehow, he recognized the glint of sympathy in Luke's gaze as their eyes met.

And then all of a sudden, his own sister was standing there in front of him. Courtney didn't speak, but opened up her arms and hugged him fiercely. Something in him broke momentarily, cracked the façade of ice that had kept him able to go through the motions of living ever since he'd realized that Carly was dead.. As Courtney put her arms around him, his body leaned into hers slightly, needing the simplicity of another human's touch. Courtney seemed to understand all of this without speaking; she only held him tighter, willingly lending her strength to him.

As Courtney slipped away and took her seat, he was surprised to see that the church had filled up with people. Just as he turned, he saw Alexis and Kristina come in. There was a thaw in his heart as he saw her. Then they saw him and came up the aisle to greet him.

Kristina offered him her condolences, and then moved discretely away, giving Alexis and Sonny a moment of privacy.

"I thought you weren't coming?" Sonny asked.

Alexis looked down for a moment. "Carly and I were never friends, and I didn't want to be a hypocrite." She raised her eyes to meet his. "But how could I stay away when there was a chance that you might need me?"

Now it was Sonny's turn to look away for a moment. For a moment, the iciness in him had thawed just the tiniest bit. But only until a moment of painful clarity struck him.
Alexis couldn't see what kind of destruction he caused in people's lives. Anyone close to him paid. But never him. Oh no, never ever him. That was God again, mocking his prayers and punishing him by punishing those around him. And he, Sonny paid by having to watch those around him pay for his sins.

He wanted to tell Alexis how badly he did need her, but the words wouldn't come. They couldn't. He didn't dare speak the words aloud. His thoughts were poison. He couldn't let her hear them. They would bring to her the same death and destruction that had come to so many others before her. The ones that had trusted him. Lily, his unborn children, and now Carly...

The coldness in his soul moved back into place – a glacier sized block of iciness and distance that enveloped him, that swallowed him whole. But one thought was clear. All he would do is bring the same destruction down on her that he had brought to Carly.

And it came to Sonny in a sudden revelation, that before he'd hurt Alexis the same way – or worse – he would choose death for himself first. In the same instant, in his deepest heart, he swore it.

"Thank you for you coming." The words sounded flat. Inadequate, even to him, even through the frigid wall of numbness binding his mind, body and his soul in wintry despair. There was so much he had to thank her for... but now he didn't dare. His mind, numbed by these dark emotions, refused to work, caught up as it was in its own pain, it only knew that he had to protect her, and he could only do that by keeping silent. Words hurt. Words could kill. Sonny was brought to his knees, spiritually and mentally...there was no strength in him in this moment. Not even to just simply reach out to what he wanted most ...

He saw Alexis' painful reaction to the deadness in his voice. She covered the sting of his words well enough, Sonny thought. A blink, and it was gone. A flare of pain flickered and echoed within him at the sight of it. But better the smaller pain now, than a world of pain later, he told himself. He was saving her from himself.

Sonny watched silently as Alexis turned away from him sadly and made her way back to one of the rearmost pews. Despite the vow he'd made to himself, a dull ache surged hollowly through the glacial abyss inside of him. Sonny barely noticed Kristina as she cast a puzzled glance his way before following her sister.