Darkness.

It possesses me. It entombs me. And darkness is all that I am now. The void is empty and vast. It cannot be mended.

Nothing can ever be fixed again.

My father comes to my room often to check on me. The room where he has locked me. The room where he tries to feed me.

I have traded one prison for another.

He tells me he wants to keep me safe. He tells me he doesn't know who to trust. But when I look at his face, it is him I don't trust.

I trust nobody. I feel nothing. Nothing can hurt me anymore. It's what Javi wanted. And I refuse to believe that this is my reality. I refuse to believe that he isn't here with me.

I'm back in the piano room. Everything else is an invention of my imagination. My hallucination. That's what I keep telling myself. That's how I go on, breathing and thinking and living.

He's going to come for me soon. He will tell me that it's all been a trick. And now it's time for my reward. Because I've been a good girl for him, he will comfort me. He will take me in his arms and hold me. Fix me. Give me the thing only he can provide.

My sanctuary.

My peace.

"Isa," my father's voice echoes through the cavernous space of my new prison. "You must eat. You must stay healthy and strong."

I blink up at his distorted face, and I am glad that he is obscured. I can’t bear to meet the eyes of this man who has raised me.

This man who- in my nightmare- took Javi away from me.

It plays on in my head. Over and over again. The whiskey. The whiskey he asked me to pour. The whiskey he did not drink. And the expression on Javi's face.

Betrayal.

It was the last thing I saw in his eyes. The last thing he felt in this nightmare. He thought I had betrayed him. My stomach churns, and I curl into myself. My cheeks are wet, but I know the tears don't mean anything.

It still isn't real.

Javi will come for me. He will ask me to play him a song with words only he can hear. I will play him a million songs. And I will sing words that I have never sung before.

When my father leaves, I scribble them down in my journal. I write pages upon pages of lyrics. Frantically. Endlessly. Until my hands are black with ink and my eyes are too blurry to see anymore.

"Sing me a song, Javi," I whisper into the darkness. "With words only I can hear."

I repeat it, over and over. I cry. I pace. I never sleep. I don't eat. I drink water only when my father makes me.

I'm dead inside already.

And the longer the days go on, the less certain I am. The harder it becomes to deny. He will come for me. That's what I tell myself. That's what I tell my father. Until the day that he comes for me instead. And he carries something with him this time.

It is a card. And something else.

A silver urn.

An urn painted with crimson roses.

"This came for you today.”

His voice is solemn, and I hate him.

"No." I yank the urn from his arms and clutch it to my chest. "No!"

I scream. I scream it over and over.

"This is your fault! You did this to me!"

Tears fill his eyes, and he looks at the floor. I can't pretend anymore. Because I'm dead inside. There is nothing left in me.

Nothing.

And I know that Javi is really gone.

And I know that I'll never be okay again.

* * *

My room is small. Sterile. White. But the tiles are sea foam green. Like the horror room at Moldavia. I wonder if Javi noticed that too when he was here.

In the sanitarium.

My therapist sits across from me, observing the pattern my fingers trace over the urn that doesn't leave my side.

"Tell me what's on your mind, Isabella," she says.

I forgot her name. Or I don't care. Names aren't important anymore. Nothing is important anymore.

"I was wondering if this was his room," I tell her. "I was wondering if the bed that I sleep in was his too."

"And if it was, how would that make you feel?"

I look at her this time.

"It would make me feel happy."

But that's a lie. Nothing can make me happy anymore. Not when grief is the only thing that exists.

My father thinks I'm wrong. Disjointed. Mentally incapable of understanding my own thoughts. He thinks I have Stockholm syndrome. He says I've been brainwashed into hating him and loving Javi instead.

But he's wrong.

I hate them both. I hate my father for his lies. And I hate Javi for leaving me. For ever loving me. For making me love him. I tell the therapist so, and she doesn't judge me. At least not out loud.

"I hate them," I tell her again. My voice is rougher this time. "I hate them both."

"Anger is a normal part of grief," she replies.

I don't want her justifications. Her agreement. I don't know what I want. I've been here for two weeks, and nothing has changed. She can’t fix me. Only Javi can.

But nobody understands that. They think I'm wrong for thinking so.

"Would you like to play the piano today, Isabella?"

I nod this time. Because I will play every day now. Every chance I get. I play him songs. But I don't sing the words out loud. Because they are only for him. Words only he can hear.

The room is quiet, and the therapist is too. I don't like it when she's quiet. It's easier when she asks me questions. Otherwise, I say things. Things that I shouldn't say.

"He isn't bad," I tell her. "You don't know him."

"I never said he was," she answers.

Her voice is gentle, but I don't believe her.

"His mother did awful things to him. And then my father. Something happened to him. He was tortured."

She sits back and crosses her legs. Folding her hands over her lap as she watches me carefully.

"Why do you feel the need to validate, Isabella?"

"I see how you look at me," I answer. "I see how you all look at me. How you scribble your notes. How my father whispers to you when I can't hear. I know what you think. But you won't change my mind. You won't fix me. Or unbreak me. Or convince me that what I feel isn't real."

She sets her pen aside. Her notebook is empty today. And I'm glad.

"What if I said that I do believe you?" she asks. "What if I told you that what you feel is real? That your love for Javi is real. Would you believe me?"

I trace over the roses again.

"I don't think so."

"Then perhaps the person you are trying to convince is yourself.”

Her words confuse me. They make my head hurt. I don't need to convince myself. I already know that my love for Javi is real.

"Do you feel guilt for loving him?" she continues. "Or is it guilt for his death?"

Death.

The word punches me in the gut all over again. I want to tell her to shut up. I want to tell her that he isn't dead. But he is.

He's right here beside me. And I'll never hold him again. I squeeze my eyes shut, and the only thing I can see is that look on his face.

The betrayal.

It's the only thing I see. Day and night. Every other memory has vanished, and this is all that remains. The haunting final moments when he was there, and then he wasn’t.

"He thought I did it," I whisper. "He thought it was me. It was the last thing he thought."

Tears leak from my eyes and I feel weak for crying all the time.

The therapist doesn't say anything. She lets me cry. She lets me feel. And it hurts so much. I wish she would just give me some pills. To numb everything. To make it go away. But she hasn't given me any.

I ask her why, and she reaches for her pen again, tapping it against the corner of the desk.

"I can't give you any pills, Isabella.”

"But why?" I ask her again. "Isn't that the whole point? The whole point of me being here?"

"The whole point of you being here is to rest," she replies. "To be well."

I ignore her and go back to tracing over the roses. She watches me. She is silent for a long time before she speaks again.

"I think you are strong, Isabella. I think you are brave. And I think Javi would want you to be well too. He would want you to be at peace."

"How can I be at peace?" I demand. "When he isn't here?"

She is quiet again. Her brow furrowed.

"What if I told you that a part of him was? What if I told you that you had another reason to be strong?"

Her words capture me. She knows it. But she does not explain right away. She watches me closely, gauging my reactions. And then when she has determined that I am ready to hear it, she goes on.

"Do you remember when your father brought you here? Do you remember the tests we ran that first day, Isabella?"

I nod. I was despondent then. I wouldn't answer their questions. I didn't need to. They took their answers from my father. From blood tests and eye tests and reflexes and other things that were supposed to measure how sick I was in the head.

The answers to those tests are in my chart. The chart she carries with her now. She opens it up and reaches inside, flipping through to the back. And then she pulls out a piece of paper, sliding it across the desk towards me.

"Isabella, the reason Javi still lives on is because he is here with you right now. Inside of you. You are pregnant with his child."