CHAPTER 60: JOINED FORCES

It had been a week already that had passed from the time this fatiguing scene of Michael had started. The gradual yet highly disturbing and volatilely alarming self-destruction he was making of himself was getting the best of both of us. What he was doing, didn’t merely devastate him, but was destroying the life in me as well.


I tried my very best and almost everything that I could just to understand him and pacify his situation, but it seemed he had completely given up on living and no longer desired to be back at his normal state.


I am at the peak of losing hope in him. At the edge of completely letting him ruin himself and simply let him be in the darkest side of his life. The only remaining piece I have in me was my love for him, which was the slimmest thread that makes me hold on to what we have.


I had been watching him day and night and observing him about his depressed status, but as the days passed by, his condition worsened. He barely looked like the man I fell in love with. He looks more now like a hopeless beggar, who was living in the street for years. He was unshaved, bathless and nearly unrecognizable.


A part of me constantly tells me to simply leave him and go on with my life without him, but my conscience and so is my heart stopped me from doing so. I love Michael so much. He was and still is my world. But what is happening now to us was moving me to the extent that I was questioning myself of how deep my love for him is.


He is currently inside our bedroom. Laying still in a fetus-like position on a duvet while staring silently at the ceiling. He had been like this for hours now, just after emptying yet again another bottle of liquor. I stared at him with helplessness, pitying his state and aching in frustration. The tears in my eyes had been constantly present and seemed unending.


“Michael,” I called out his name as I slowly walked towards him. He didn’t seem to hear my voice as his eyes were fixed solely above him. I kneeled at his side and gently touched his arm. “Honey, you haven’t eaten for days? Please don’t do this to yourself. It pains me extremely seeing you like this.”


“Let me be, Pamela,” He murmured nonchalantly.


“I can’t let you be, Michael. I love you. I can’t just let you destroy yourself. Please, Honey, don’t do this to yourself. Don’t you care about me anymore? Don’t you care about our love?”


He sighed heavily as a stream of painful and grieving fluid rolled down from his left eye. A few seconds more, he bursted out and wailed animalistically. The sound of his cries were hellish and ear-deafening like it was the end of the world for him. It made me cry all the more. The sight of him totally breaks my heart into shard pieces as I gripped his arm tightly with hopes that somehow he could feel my love for him with the way I held him.


“I don’t wish to live anymore. I simply want to die to end this misery I am at. Go on with your life, Pamela, and just let me die in agony. I no longer desire to see another day knowing Michelle wasn’t with me anymore.”


“Don’t say that, Michael! How can you say such a thing in front of me? I am extremely in pain witnessing you ruining your precious life! Come back to me. Please, I beg you! If there’s still an inch of love there inside of you for me, return to life for me” I devastated uttered as I cling tightly to his arm while my eyes continued to pour heavy and burdensome liquids. “I love you, Michael. I need you in my life. Don’t kill me and my love for you with what you are administering now to yourself. I need you, please don’t destroy yourself.”


Slowly his head moved. He looked at me with hollowed eyes, full of sorrow and hopelessness. Minutes after, a part of my heart suddenly warmed up when I felt his coarse hand slowly brushing off my tears. It made me cry even more.


For the past few days, this was the only time he showed compassion again towards me. This was the only time I felt him to be a human again, with affection and care that his simple touch bore. My heart leaped in exuberance at the simple gesture he made, which gave me a little hope that things between us could still be solved.


“I apologized for hurting you, Pamela. I don’t wish to see you in this state, but I couldn’t drive myself to go back to the way it was before. The drive in me to continue living was slowly fading away. I don’t know how to get back to my old self knowing my daughter wasn’t with me.”


“Let me help you, Michael. I am more than willing to help you gain yourself back. Let my love for you heal your pains away. We can do this, Michael, just let me help you. I promise, once you are fine then we will think of a way to get Michelle back. Whatever it takes, we will have her back here.”


What I said slightly flickered a light in his gloomy eyes. They somehow brightened a bit as he slowly flashed a saddened smile. “We will never win over Penelope now, Pamela. She’s currently undefiable and powerful. There’s no way we could win over her.”


“We will think of a way, Michael. I don’t care if we have to acquire it through illegal matters of some sort, but we will make it happen. You have to compose yourself first and willed your mind. We will avenge what that woman did to us, to our lives. We will make her pay, Michael, for destroying our relationship before and badly hurting us now. I will not stop until I have my revenge on her. I am aware you want that as much as I do, so let’s work together to make her suffer for every pain she caused us.”


The hollowness in his eyes swiftly vanished. The sorrow and grief that once bore his eyes could no longer be seen in them. All of a sudden, his eyes were filled with extreme rage and hatred, which literally curved the corners of my lips as my head slowly nodded in succession.


“You were right. Why do I need to drown myself in misery and kill myself from sadness and longingness, when we could think of a way on how to persecute and punish her from everything she caused to us. I was such a fool to think hopelessly like it was doomsday for me. You are completely right, Pamela. Why haven’t I thought about that lately?” He utterly determinedly, as if being awakened from a deep and icy slumber, which utterly made me overjoyed with extreme delight and relief.


“Together, Michael, we will make it happen. If we have to fly to New York just to have our revenge, then so be it. We will destroy her life and take Michelle home with us afterwards. We will be unstoppable, Honey, you and I. With joined forces, nothing can hinder us in avenging what she did to us. We will let her experience hell where she definitely belongs.”