Daniel

"Answer me," I raged out as I looked at him with my heart breaking in pieces. I was angry. There was so much rage inside of me at the moment that I would have destroyed the whole room if I hadn't been torn apart on the inside. I was angry at Heath but more than that I was angry at myself. 

I believed all the lies. Everything said about her I had thought to be true but they were nothing but lies. Lies that were now cracking all of me on the inside. It hurt. Everything hurt.

"Goddammit, answer me," I screamed at him to answer as I stared into his fearful eyes. I needed an answer. Why did he do this to me?

"TELL ME!" I grabbed onto his collar tighter.

"Because Josephine told me to," he answered yelling pulling himself out of my hold. I couldn't understand his words. I heard them but my brain couldn't register. Did he say Josephine? My grip on his collar weakened. He pulled himself away from me walking a few steps making some distance between us.

"Aunt Josephine told me to," he gasped for air as he stared at me.

"You are lying," I whispered in disbelief, he had to be. Goddammit, he had to be. My mom won't do this to me. She won't do this to Amelia.

God Amelia, what had I done to her? How could I have done this to her? What was I going to do? How was I even going to survive knowing this? My head was spinning.

"I'm not lying," he cried out with tearful eyes as he sat down with his elbows over his knees. "She told me," he paused as he looked up at the ceiling trying to get a hold of all his emotions. He looked as if he couldn't find the words and choking on his emotions. 

He pressed his lips together as the first tear rolled down his cheek and all I could think was how many tears Amelia might have shed for me to hear her once. How many tears would she have shed when she had gone through it all alone? It hurt just to try to imagine it. It made me want to cry.

The pain and hurt she had gone through would have been nothing compared to what I had felt. I wanted to stop breathing just thinking what I had done to her, all that she had to suffer all because of me.

"She told me that Amelia was after the money, " Heath breathed and my eyes turned towards him.

"You are lying!" I raged out. "Amelia was never after the money. She had none but she was never after the money."

"You say that now?" He called out making me shut up and eat my own words. "You believed everything back then. It wasn't just me it was everyone else even your mother," he added. I couldn't understand anything. Everything felt so confusing while I was still trying to reel in from the pain of the revelation that Amelia was innocent.

"Just like me, you believed in what was shown to you," he paused as I slumped down to the floor. I didn't know what to say to him. Everything hurt. The memories one after another flashed through my mind and they were knives to my heart. The pain already felt so excruciating. Breathing hurt, moving pained me, and closing my eyes felt like torture because all I could see was her and hear her cries.

"I still don't know whether she had stolen that money from the company or not but she wasn't unfaithful, I can assure you. Somewhere deep down I even believe that she wasn't what Aunt Josephine told me and accused her of," he confessed splitting my heart in two. My mother wouldn't do this. I was in denial of what he was saying. He just wanted to save himself.

"She loves me, Heath. My mother loves me she wouldn't do something..... like this," I believed in what I said yet my words trembled. My beliefs were shaken. The pillars of my trust were shattering down. Heath looked at me with pure pity as he wiped a tear from under his eye.

"She is like a mother to me too, has been since I lost my mom," he chuckled sadly. "I had no one but she was always there for me," he sniffled looking up at the ceiling and intertwining his fingers. "Dad had already remarried and then mom collapsed. I looked up to her and you for anything since I was fourteen." He closed his eyes and I could feel myself shattering. I knew he was going to make me believe that what he said was the truth, he was going to break the image that I carried of my mother. He was going to crumble down my beliefs and faith.

"She had called me that summer," he started and I was already crying. The first sob escaped my lips but he didn't stop. " I didn't even know that you were married, Daniel. God, I was mad that you hadn't called me. I felt so low for a moment but then Aunt Josephine said that it was a small and a quick one because of your temper. She didn't even have time to prepare."

Lies.  I wanted to scream out. There was ample time to call people for my wedding. There was but she had just said that she didn't want to call the family and overwhelm Amelia.

"I agreed with her reasoning. What was I supposed to do?" he laughed in a sad tone. "Then she added that there was something fishy with the girl he had married and the company accounts." His every word made me walk down to memory line making the pain come back crawling back to me, gnawing me on the insides, wounding me up. All I could see was Amelia's smile and the way she had been there for me. All I could see was her and her. All the hatred and venom I had for her melted away and now I was the one who was worth the hatred.

"I didn't know much but I was confused about why was she telling me all this," he breathed in. "Then she told me that she needed to help me with the company since you couldn't because of the accident. I agreed because it felt like my mother was asking me for something. She told me that if I did her a favor by coming down there to pull off the rose-colored glasses your wife had put on you and everyone else she would even give me a place in the company." I looked up at the ceiling with my eyes shut. My emotions were choking me. I wanted to scream out and let it all out. I wanted to cry out in the pain I was feeling. I couldn't walk but I could do everything. Anger burned inside me thinking that my mother considered me a disability too.

"I still remember it vividly you know," he sniffled. "Looking around my one-room apartment where everything was rotting and dying with bills piling up. I felt it to be a lifeline and I held onto it with my dear life. I came down to Angston Hill within the next three days."

"The first time I saw Amelia," I even hated him saying her name but how could I hate him without hating myself? "She was walking up the stairs carrying your lunch. There was nothing that felt like out of the ordinary. She didn't give the cunning or gold digger vibes at all that Josephine had talked about within those three days."

"I met you and god you were so fucking  happy Daniel," he paused making me open my eyes and look at him. There was a sad smile on his lips as he looked at me. "You were a man in love but more than that it was her who loved you. She looked at you as if you were the bane of her existence, that without you she would crumble." he sobbed as he looked down. 

"Then Josephine showed me those bills and papers," he sniffled. "She made me that she was making you sign papers and stealing money. She showed me one thing after another. She met other people and lawyers to embezzle the funds. She even added that Amelia kept you in the room mostly so you wouldn't know the truth. She even made me believe that if given the chance she would cheat on you. Like a fool, I believed her Daniel."

"I agreed with her on trying to make it possible for Amelia to cheat on you but the first time I tried I knew that she wasn't unfaithful. She could have been after your money but not unfaithful," I breathed out. "Deep down I knew something was wrong Amelia wasn't like what Josephine had made her about but she had coaxed me, pleaded to me for doing what I was doing. She promised to give a share of the company in turn of it. She gave me money and shares and I was sold goddamit," he cried out as my soul broke in parts. I felt like my heart was being stabbed by my own hands as if I was crushing it with my own two hands. How could mom do this to her? To me?

"I did what she said I hurt her in a way and created the false image that she wanted me. I made every belief. Aunt Josephine made everyone believe about it. She was the one who did it all and god I feel nothing but deep hatred inside of me Daniel. I hate myself for doing everything. That day when you saw me and Amelia Josephine had it all played out herself. She was there to drop get some paper signed by me, Josephine had sent them. She had thought I wasn't there but I was hiding in the bathroom and came out from behind her naked just in time. I had been the one to push her on the bed-."

"STOP IT!" I shrieked out. Closing my ears I couldn't hear anything more of it. I couldn't hear him telling me how he had destroyed all of my and her life.

"Just stop!" I screamed out as pain consumed me. I wanted the hurt to stop. I just wanted it to fucking stop. I rubbed my heart but nothing could help with the pain. It felt as if I was rotting in hell, burning in the pits of hell as agony consumed me.

"Do you have any idea what you had done Heath? Any idea how she might have felt? How she would have been hurting. God she had just wanted me to hear her once. She had cried and begged me as I had thrown things around the room. How desperate she had been when she had done nothing wrong?" I cried out thinking about her.

"Daniel," I couldn't even hear him right now.

"Just leave," I yelled at him. "Fucking leave before I kill you with my own bare hands. Just fucking leave Heath," I said the last part in a defeated tone.

I sobbed like a child with my head in my hands. Everything was hurting. All I could feel was pain. How could they do this to me? How could my mom do this to me? How could I do it to the woman I loved the most? How could I?

"I'm sorry Daniel," Heath sobbed out standing there and I wanted to wrap my hands around his neck to strangle him.

"You can keep your sorry to yourself, you bastard. You can keep it to yourself because you fucking destroyed me. You killed a part of me, you and my mom both did!" I raged out. 

"If what you say is the truth then you could be the only son my mother has because god forbids I will not be her son. I would rather die than be her son. Do you think your sorry or anything can change anything?" I shouted at him.

"Can you bring back the time when everything was fine?  When Amelia was beside me? When we were madly and deeply in love with each other? Can you bring that all back?" I sobbed out with a broken heart and shattered soul.

"TELL ME!!" I asked as he sat there.

"I can't," he started but then stopped. "I can't bring back that Amelia to you because unlike you she is dead," his words tilted my axis. It pulled the ground from beneath me. What was he saying? What the hell was he talking about?

"That Amelia is no longer with us. All that is left is a shell of her that has no memories of the past, Daniel. I have met her but she doesn't remember a thing." His words echoed in my ears leaving me distraught and relived at the same time. She was alive. She was still in this world, alive and breathing. She had survived all the pain she had to bear because of me but she didn't exist. 

Hey everyone I have my fingers crossed. Hope you all like it. Hope I didn't make a mess of the chapter and it was up to the marks. If it wasn't please let me know. I read all the comments and try my best to bring you a good read.

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