Finding Forgiveness

For the rest of the day, Andrea was in a good mood.

As usual, I still did my best to avoid him but when he came to find me in the garden in the early afternoon, the sinking sensation in my heart wasn't as extreme. Think expensive yacht rather than the Titanic.

"I'm leaving for a few days," he told me as he sat beside me on the lawn and joined me in staring up at the golden rays of the afternoon sun. "Am I going to?" I asked, curling my fingers around some blades of grass and plucking them from the earth.

"Not this time, Blanca," he replied. "You've already done your bit to help me with this.”

I furrowed my eyebrows, "What?"

He turned to me with a glimmer in his eye, before he turned back to the sky.

"Don't you worry,” he said. "I'll see you in two days.”

As promised, two uneventful days later he returned. Despite moving in the interim, I was in the exact spot in the garden that he left me, laying on the lawn on my back staring up into the sky.

I didn't look up at him or even move as he approached and he stood by me for a few moments before speaking.

"Come with me."

"Why?" I asked immediately.

"Don't question, just come," he said grabbing my wrist and pulling me to my feet.

He led me back into the house and when we reached the kitchen I suddenly froze. A sly smile slipped onto Andrea's face and he tugged me further.

"No," I whispered after swallowing the shock lodged in my throat. "Who's scent is that?"

It drifted from his office, it's tentacles wrapping slowly around my chest. Squeezing, trapping, seizing. With every memory it triggered, the tighter it gripped and the less I could breathe until I find myself physically unable to.

"I think you know who," he replied. "So come on. Let's go and have a family reunion.”