"You don't know what you are saying, Isa. You have been brainwashed."
Javi meets my father's gaze head on.
"And you have a right to speak about brainwashing?"
Dad's face is red and mottled all over again.
"There are many things you do not understand," he tells Javi. "That you never could. You want to believe only what you want to believe."
Javi looks at me and shakes his head, his eyes sad.
"Bella does not need to hear these things.”
My father silently agrees, and the room falls still again. Too still. Like the calm before the storm. The tension is still there, simmering below the surface. And I am anxious now because I don’t know when it’s going to erupt. But I know one thing, and that is I won’t let Javi leave without me.
Not today. Not ever.
They both stare over the rims of their glasses, like snakes poised to strike. Javi is the first to drink, swallowing the entire contents of the tumbler in one fell swoop.
And then he looks at me again. His face contorted. At first, I think he is angry with me. But then he coughs. And sputters. And coughs again.
"Javi?"
I move to his side, but he doesn't respond.
It all happens in horrific slow motion. The color drains from Javi’s face while my father looks into his own tumbler and it shatters to the floor.
"Dad?" I scream.
Javi falls back against the sofa and begins to convulse.
"Dad! Help him. What's happening? Please help him."
My father rushes to Javi's side and begins chest compressions. I grab Javi’s face, trying to see him. Trying to see his eyes, but they are closed, and he is lifeless.
It's all happening too fast.
It's all too real. Nothing about this makes sense. He was just talking to me. And now he's lying here, and I can't see his eyes. I can't feel his heartbeat or hear his breath.
I'm sobbing. Begging him not to go anywhere. Demanding that he stops this right now. He can't trick me anymore. He can't play these games with me anymore. I’m too fragile, and I can’t survive it. Not this time. Not when he said he loved me, and I believed him.
During the chaos, the front door opens, and someone else appears. In the back of my mind, I hope that it's the ambulance. The ambulance that's coming to rescue him. To fix him. The ambulance that we haven't even had time to call. But paramedics don’t wear a mask. And they don’t have guns, either.
"Time to say goodbye, little Bella," the strange voice tells me.
"What?" I blink and cling to Javi. "No."
None of this is real. It can't be. It just can't. I don't know what's happening. Only that I'm sobbing hysterically and Javi isn’t moving, and I’m so scared. My father keeps saying that he's sorry. He's so sorry. There's nothing he can do.
But he’s a liar, and I hate him.
I hate him so much, and I can’t even comprehend why at this moment. He's dragging me away from Javi.
The masked men are shouting orders. But I can't hear them. Because I'm trying to get to Javi. I'm trying to fight my father off. But he's too big. Too strong. And the men are taking Javi away from me. Dragging him out the front door.
I scream at them to stop. Only one of them does, just to look back at me one last time.
"I will send you the ashes, little Bella. It's what he would have wanted."