“Every single day, I kept giving you a chance to make it up to us but you weren’t there! You never showed up!” I smacked his chest one more time even if my hands were shaking. “You made me feel like I was the worst person to love, Xandros. In my desire to complete you, to make you feel whole, I was the one who got broken.” My voice cracked. “You once talked about how you spent eight years suffering. You made me go through the same thing. You are so cruel.”
“God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I cried like I had never cried before for a lot of things, for the dreams and happiness that was snatched away from me, for my parents, for my family, for my daughter, and for the woman that I had become. And then I screamed on top of my lungs.
Even screaming was a difficult thing to do. I couldn’t let it slip my throat. The words I just said, I didn’t have the chance to say them.
I couldn’t even be upset for a long time. I felt like I had no right to feel that way. Because what happened was my fault. I didn’t have the time to grieve, to be angry, and to curse Alexandros. Every morning, I had to keep struggling. And every night, I had to force myself to get some sleep, so I could wake up the next morning to do my endless routine.
“I fought so hard for our love, Xandros,” I added in a weak voice. “Others called me crazy because I waited for you even if years had passed. I fought but you didn’t join me in that battle. And Demi… you said you knew about her. You even had a vision of her. Yet, you still left us just like that. How could you do that? What kind of a father are you? I had to raise her all by myself!”
I found myself raising my voice again. “I had to write happy endings so I could feed our daughter! Imagine that? Happy endings!” I laughed hysterically. “I had to write that one thing that I don’t believe in anymore. Worse, I had to keep lying to her that her father was just working somewhere far even if I knew that it’s impossible for you to come back to us anymore. Because I was wrong, Xandros. You are incapable of loving someone.”
My knees wobbled and I dropped myself on the ground. “You… you never truly loved me, did you?”
Alexandros bent his knee and gently lifted my chin so our eyes could meet. Pain was visible in his eyes. And I didn’t want to be affected by it again. But damn it, after all these years, my stupid heart still ached just because I saw him hurting.
“Blame me and curse me all you want. I can take them, Alison. I will endure even if you say the ugliest things about me. But to accuse me of someone who was incapable of love, of someone who didn’t love you and our daughter, Alison, that’s a bit too much.”
I laughed and again, it sounded so miserable. Despite that, I hated myself for this yearning that I suddenly felt toward him. God… how I wanted to hear that voice again. And how I despised myself for being weak again.
“I’m being too much? You are saying that to me of all people? Really now?” I shot back, furious, after I regained my voice. I pushed Alexandros away. I tried to stand even if my knees were still trembling. “I don’t know why you’re here or if this place is real. For all I know, this could be a part of an illusion. That’s what you are good at. Maybe you are making a fool out of me again. But I’m done with that, Alexandros.
“I’m so tired of hoping and of getting my heart broken. I thought I could face you again. But I was wrong. I’m going back. I don’t think I could stay here with you any longer.”
I turned my back away from him as I reached out for the book drawn in my wrist. And it appeared.
“No, you can’t leave yet, human! I won’t allow you!”
“Clavia, no!” Alexandros screeched.
I stopped from opening the book when I heard a commotion around. I was startled when somebody embraced me from behind. When I turned around, I saw Alexandros. His face had gone pale.
There was a pained expression in his eyes once more as his trembling hands cupped my face. A tear fell from his eye. Before I could speak, he fell on the ground. That was only the time I noticed the dagger struck in his back.
“Xandros!” I screamed.

“THINGS had been a little crazy that I didn’t get to welcome you earlier. I’m sorry, I had been a terrible host. Anyway, welcome to Arameth, the land of the broken.”
I wasn’t able to let out a single word after hearing the bitterness laced in Nathan’s voice. I was just shocked to see the giant puzzle that I saw in the grand living room in the Eliran castle. Because the puzzle was my face… and Demi’s. It was not over yet.
There were some pieces that hadn’t been inserted yet, those were the pieces meant for the background. It was the lake behind us.
“You could still leave, Alison. You are free to do that. No one will stop you. I believe that even if my cousin is conscious right now, he also wouldn’t try to stop you from leaving. After all that he heard, he might even push you to leave.”
Those were the words Nathan told me when he returned to me after he helped Alexandros to get inside the carriage. The latter was still unconscious at that time.
“But if you leave, this will really be the last time that you will see him again, I mean, the real him and not the ones that you see in the mortal world."