Chapter 164 Losing everything - Miguel POV
"Mi hijo." Mom's voice sounds anguished as she clutches my face to her stomach, my shoulders shaking as tears wrack through my body.
My heart is physically aching. I'm in disbelief of what I've done. I hurt the most important person in my life, the person I've yearned for since I was a senior in high school.
I could've killed her.
My heart skips a beat just thinking about the unimaginable.
I could've killed our baby in turn.
How am I even capable of that?
I shouldn't be surprised. I'm a trained killer. It's all I'm good for.
I don't deserve Madison. And I certainly don't deserve the life growing inside of her. What if my tainted blood somehow ended up in my child? What if he ends up like Ben?
Ever since I saw Madison, I've had these fantasies in my head of how we will get married one day, and have a whole army of children. Now I'm actually living it. All I had left to do was ask her to marry me.
I ruined everything.
The dream is so vivid in my mind. I was back in my old bedroom, only this time I wasn't a kid. Caroline came into my room, and she straddled me, but I said no, and I started to strangle her.
Only it wasn't her that I strangled. It was Madison.
I will never be able to forgive myself for that. She's doing the right thing to leave. I shouldn't be around her or a baby if my dreams are spilling out into reality.
Maybe she can find a nice man, one that doesn't have demons chasing him. Maybe he will raise my son or daughter in a healthy environment.
The thought alone is enough to make me want to get up and start slamming the punching bag again, but if that's what I have to do, then so be it.
If she stays around me, I will end up harming her more. She deserves more than who I am. I had no business chasing after her in the first place.
"Valentina, can I talk to Miguel in private please?"
Mom steps away from me, and I hang my head in my hands. This time, this is goodbye. Everything I ever wanted, I got, but my demons were too strong to keep it.
I can't blame anyone for Madison leaving but myself. Not Ben, not Caroline, not Father. It was my hand around her throat.
"I'm going now." Madison's voice is soft, and the pain evident. "But it doesn't mean I'm leaving you. I'm not raising this baby on my own, but I'm also not raising him with an unhealthy father."
I will myself to look up at her, my heart squeezing in my chest when I see the clear outline of my fingerprints on her neck.
I don't remember crying like this since I was a child. The tears run down my face because of what I did.
She touches me then, her hand cupping my cheek, and even though I shouldn't, I lean into it.
"Please Miguel, whatever is bothering you, please tell me." Her voice is broken, and also riddled with tears. "Maybe I can help you, is it about Ben?"
I shake my head, the tears pouring onto her skin, and the words stuck in my throat.
How do I tell the woman that I love more than anything in this world, the woman who is literally perfect, that I am broken? And dirty. And not worth the floor she steps on?
That I'm ashamed?
That I wished I could be the man she wanted me to be? The man that I pretended to be all along just so I could have a taste of her? So I could bask in her sun for just a little while?
How can I utter those words?
She drops to her knees in front of me, but her face is all blurry and I can't see her perfection.
"Please, Miguel!" She's sobbing along with me now. "I need you with us! Promise me you'll go to therapy or something! Promise me!"
I can't make a promise that I don't know if I can keep. Right now, this shame and poison inside me feel bigger than her light. I want to be buried, join Ben in the ground because that's where I belong.
She leaves me there eventually, because she's stronger than me. Better than me.
I stay sitting there, the tears dried up until my mother comes back out and tenderly enfolds me in her arms again, an embrace that I longed for so many times when I was a child. It feels like my only solace now.
"Mi hijo." Her voice trembles too. "Don't do this, don't be like me too."
She holds me even tighter. I'm not like her, she endured years of mental illness, admitted to a psychiatric facility. That is someone who wants to fight.
I don't think I want that.
The only thought running through my mind is, is that I want to die.