After a long and silent drive, Carmina and I were back in Midnight Hollow.
After Nick’s death, our house was never put on the market. It just sat there like a vengeful ghost waiting for me to reenter and relieve the tortures I suffered at the hands of Carmina so many years before.
I could barely breathe as I entered the dusty foyer…the last place I saw Nick alive; his enraged eyes cutting through my memory as if he was still standing there, demanding that I leave our home.
I went straight up to our bedroom, where we spent so much of our time; late nights cuddling while reviewing how our days went and later making our first child together.
It had been so long since I last cried for Nick, but standing there in that bedroom…I missed him so much that the tears quickly started welling up on the rims of my eyes.
Like a broken dam, the tears finally overflowed as I stood in the middle of my bedroom sobbing.
“I’m so sorry Nick!” I cried out loud…so loud that I didn’t hear my bedroom door open.
Just then, Carmina’ssnippy tone interrupted my cries, “When you’re done with your little dramatics, I need you to take me to the store. My bedroom furniture is outdated and dusty.”
I don’t know what happened. My tears instantly dried up and I sort of snapped.
I turned and walked over to her in rush… my heart beating; not in fear of her, but in fear of what I’d do to her.
“Look you little bitch…you’ve taken everything from me!”
I surprised her and myself with the anger and force within my tone.
“You aren’t taking away my right to mourn my dead husband!” Livid, I balled my hands into tight fists and Carmina backed away a few steps.
“I should’ve stood up to you a long time ago…no matter the consequences. Maybe he’d still be here. Get the hell out of my room!”
I could tell from the look in her face that I had only temporarily caught her off guard. Once her surprise melted away; indignation grew in it’s place.
I wasn’t done with her yet. “What do you want from me? You’ve already taken everything,” I said, much weaker than my earlier tone.
“Not everything…” she said in a threat before she turned and left my room.
Normally I would have been worried, but I didn’t really have the energy to care what she was referring to this time. If she wanted my very life, she could have it. I no longer cared.
Right now, all I wanted to do was lay down on my dusty bed; praying that I could catch some faint scent of Nick on the sheets.
All I smelled was mildew and dust as I drifted off to sleep.
The next few years reminded me of the eye of a hurricane.
Five years went by without any major incidents with Carmina.
I wish I could have relaxed during all of that time, but I knew that evil never rests. It would be a matter of time before she made due on her threat.
In the meantime, I just existed. I didn’t care about much of anything.
I had all of the mirrors removed from my bathroom and bedroom, because I didn’t care to look at myself anymore. When I brushed my teeth, I just stared at the bare wall.
I dressed without putting much thought into it.
I chose clothes and put them on without any regard to if any of it looked right together or even if they hung right on my body.
I could care less about whether I was beautiful or not…
…because Carmina had enough beauty for both of us.
She was now 20 years old and while most parents looked forward to their children growing up and leaving the nest…
I knew it would never happen for me. With Carmina, there were no college plans, no job searches and no dating. She wasn’t even interested in learning to drive.
She was only interested in continuing to give me hell.
I took a large bite out of my toast and jam.
“Oh, I wouldn’t eat that if I were you,” she said just as I was about to swallow.
Only after she said it did I detect some foul flavor on my tongue. I promptly spit it all out on my plate.
Carmina never outgrew doing little things to make things hard on me…to make sure I could never really rest.
But she did realize that something had changed.
Her little shenanigans no longer got to me like they once did. She was no longer able to hurt me like she could before…
And that was because I was too busy torturing myself.
I spent hours everyday at Nick’s gravesite; sobbing until I ran out of tears.
The guilt of him being dead and knowing that it was 100% my fault was too much for me to deal with.
These daily visits were the only way that I could get by.
I sat there, alternating between tears and one sided conversation until my guilt was temporarily purged and I was ready for another day.
Like I said…I was just existing.
…And I thought I would just go on; repeating the same patterns…existing.
Until I woke up one morning and saw a picture sitting on my nightstand.
I picked up the picture to get a closer look.
I gasped when I saw a woman that looked about Carmina’sage. She also looked a lot like me when I was that age. I could even see some of Nick’s features in her pretty brown face.
But it was the eye patch that covered her right eye that made me drop the picture at my feet in shock. The woman in the picture was my daughter…my biological daughter, Christina, that I abandoned in the hospital 20 years ago.
Christina’s picture being there on my nightstand meant two things…one, Carmina knew about her, and two…
…she was in a danger. Carmina had found one more thing to threaten me with.
