I want Her Still

The breaking point.

Seraphina couldn't sleep yet gain.

The walls of the Lopez mansion were too quiet, too perfect. But tonight, something was different soft thuds, muffled voices and then, the unmistakable sound of the front door creaking open.

Curious and tense, she tiptoed to the hallway and peeked from the shadows. Her breath caught.

It was Eric helping Damien through the door.

Damien was drunk.

That alone was shocking.

What?

Damien drunk? She wouldn't miss this moment for anything.

She never pictures Damien as anyone capable of losing control, from what she heard about him, it was said that he has never lost control.

Never let his guard down. Yet here he was, shoulders slumped, feet dragging, completely undone. She watched as Eric supported him, gently murmuring words she couldn't make out before disappearing with him into his room.

Soon he exited the room and then he left.

Seraphina pulled back into the shadows, heart hammering. Then, with trembling hands, she rushed to his room, opened Damien's door and slipped inside.

But to her surprise, the room was empty.

Her gaze wandered slowly across the space. Damien's bedroom was dark, quiet just like his personality, and for the first time, she was seeing his world up close. Everything was minimal, pristine, but oddly hollow. Like a hotel room someone had lived in too long, but something about the room still unsettles her.

She stood still for a while, letting herself breathe in the air he breathed, memorizing the scent of his cologne on the sheets. Then, the sound of water running from the bathroom snapped her back to the moment.

Turns out, he was in the shower. And her heart soared.

This was it. The moment she'd waited years for. The quiet nights she used to dream of him were finally here. She closed her eyes and whispered a silent prayer; Let this be my breakthrough, oh heaven help me.

The water stopped.

Moments later, Damien staggered into the room, barefoot, wearing nothing but a damp robe. His eyes were glassy, movements sluggish. He looked like a man trying to crawl out of his own body. And before he could even pull the covers over himself, he collapsed onto the bed and passed out.

Seraphina hovered for a moment nervous, unsure but the opportunity was too tempting.

She sat beside him, her hand trembling as she reached to touch his chest. But before her fingers met his skin, Damien's hand snapped up and caught her wrist in a vice grip.

His eyes opened, sharp now. "Who the hell?"

"It's me," she whispered. "Seraphina."

He sat up abruptly, dragging her hand away and glaring. "What the hell are you doing in my room, Seraphina?" Damien's voice was low, slurred but sharp, his teeth clenched as he glared at her through half-lidded eyes.

"I, I was just worried," she stammered, inching closer. "I saw you drunk, and I couldn't believe it. You never lose control like that. I wanted to check on you, you know how much I have always wanted you. I just couldn't resist you, I am sorry."

"Get out." His voice was harsher this time. He flung her hand away, turned his face from her, and shut his eyes, as if dismissing both her and the world.

But she stayed.

"Please, Damien," she whispered, her fingers lightly brushing against his arm again. "Can't you let me in, even if it's just for tonight? Just this once."

He didn't respond. Maybe he couldn't. His body was limp, heavy with alcohol and exhaustion, his breathing slow and shallow.

"There's nothing I wouldn't do for you," she said, more desperately now. "I'd die for you, Damien. Don't you remember the time I saved your life? You said you hated owing anyone, Well, consider this the debt. Just let me stay with you tonight. Please."

Still nothing. His eyes remained closed.

She swallowed hard, her pulse quickening. This is my chance.

Her trembling hand slid down his chest, over the firm lines of his torso. Her breath caught in her throat as she felt the ridges of his sculpted muscles beneath her fingers. He didn't push her away. He didn't move at all.

And in that stillness, Seraphina's heart soared with reckless hope

"Damien, Damien?" Seraphina whispered, leaning in close, testing if he was truly unconscious. His eyes remained shut, his breathing shallow.

Now, she told herself, trembling as her fingers moved toward the knot of his robe. She began to untie it slowly, hesitantly until his hand shot up and grabbed her wrist in a crushing grip.

She gasped.

"Tyler, is that you?" Damien mumbled, his voice barely above a whisper, cracked and hollow.

Seraphina froze. Tyler? Her heart stuttered then a wicked idea bloomed. If pretending to be this Tyler would give her what she wanted, so be it.

"Yes," she said softly, her voice shaking. "Yes, of course. It's me, Damien."

In a sudden burst of strength, Damien gripped her chin and turned her face toward his, his eyes still glazed but filled with pain. Then, without warning, he crushed his lips against hers.

It wasn't a kiss, it was a punishment.

He bit her lower lip so hard she screamed, the copper taste of blood spilling into her mouth. It wasn't passion, it was rage, grief, betrayal. She tore herself away, her lip trembling, blood running down her chin, she sowore she would have lost her lips if she hadn't stopped that kiss_what the hell...

"Why, why did you kiss me like that?" she choked out, eyes wide, tears brimming from the sting and the shock.

"I am angry at you Tyler!" he hissed, barely coherent. "You lied to me. You broke me." Seraphina swallowed hard. He really loved her.

"You really like her that much?"

Then his eyes snapped open, filled with venom. "No, I don't like her. I hate Tyler. She is the worse thing that ever happened to me. And I swear, I will find her."

"Tell me then, what will you do when you do find her?" Seraphina asked, her voice barely audible now, heart pounding in her chest.

She asked "I will kill her!"

His voice was chillingly calm. The weight of his words chilled her. She forced a nervous laugh, covering her fear.

Tyler will die by my hands" ""Are you sure about that?" Seraphina asked again in doubt because she was starting to worry for herself and this Tyler what ever girl.

"Then find her and kill her for good!" Seraphina said.

"But I don't know where to find her. "She vanished! Tyler vanished. She lied to me, everything about her was a lie, she made the lie feel so real that I believe it. She is a good liar" Damien said as a tear slides down. "

"Tyler doesn't exist, that smile, that innocent face, that beautiful eyes, the sweet girl with the soft laugh, that birthmark, all was an illusion, Tyler doesn't exist!" He repeated it to himself in a faint voice.

Seraphina's ears perked. "What birthmark?"

Damien's eyes blinked in the dim light. "The teardrop birthmark, on her thigh." His voice trembled.

Seraphina frowned. That detail, it felt oddly familiar. Before she could speak, Damien seemed to snap out of his haze. He looked at her properly for the first time, and realization dawned.

His face contorted in horror.

"What the hell, Seraphina?" He recoiled like he'd been burned. "You, what are you still doing here? I told you to leave! Are you courting death?"

He pushed himself up in disgust and scrambled for his phone, trying to call Eric.

But Seraphina, desperate, lunged forward and grabbed his hand. "Wait! I know someone with a teardrop birthmark on her thigh," Seraphina suddenly blurted out, desperation thick in her voice.

Damien, who had been seconds away from calling Eric, froze. His hand trembled slightly as he turned to look at her. His eyes, still glazed with the remnants of alcohol and pain, he narrowed his eyes as he fought fiercely against the alcohol and drowsiness.

"What, did you just say?" he asked, his voice low, almost dangerous.

"A teardrop birthmark," she repeated more slowly this time, her heart pounding in her chest. "On her thigh. Just like the one you described."

Damien's expression shifted. Confusion battled with clarity, and his brows furrowed as something distant began to stir behind his eyes. "What are you talking about?" he whispered, his voice suddenly fragile. "Who?"

Seraphina stepped closer, cautiously, as if she were navigating a minefield.

"Ana," she said softly. "Ana, the girl from college. The one we used to call the clerk's daughter."

Damien blinked. "Ana what?"

"You don't remember?" she asked, her voice catching somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "She lived next door to you in Chicago. She used to come over all the time. That girl we use to bully, quiet, sweet, always clutching her books like a shield. We were all in the same circle, but we never treated her like she belonged. We teased her, mocked her especially about her name."

Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Clarkson. Ana Clarkson."

Damien's face paled.

Seraphina continued, the words spilling now. "Her dad was a receptionist in the building. We called him a clerk, and we thought Clarkson sounded like a job title. So we turned it into a joke. We called her the clerk's daughter like it was funny, like it didn't matter. But it acts use to hurt her."

She swallowed hard, her chest tightening as her own memories began to sting.

"I remember how much she hated it. How her smile would falter every time we called her that. She tried to laugh it off, but she hated it so much back then. She had this quiet dignity, a-and she was actually quite pretty."

Damien looked away, jaw clenched. Something in him shifted something dark and familiar.

"She has the birthmark, I swear I remember, a teardrop that looked like a tattoo on her upper thigh" Seraphina added, softer now. "The shape of a teardrop. I remember seeing it once by accident during a pool party. She was trying so hard to keep her towel on, and I jokingly yanked her towel away back then. We actually wanted to humiliated her that day for insulting you. We had even laughed it off." Seraphina's voice broke. "We laughed, Damien you were there too."

The room seemed to still around them.

Damien was no longer just drunk he was drowning in memory. The walls of his past, long buried, were beginning to crack open.

"I don't. I don't remember her," he muttered, but his hands were shaking.

"You don't what? It's not possible, how will you not remember Ana? Ana Clarkson."

That was the moment it happened. A sudden, blinding pain shot through Damien's skull. He groaned, clutching his head as if something inside him was trying to tear free.

"Stop, stop talking," he whispered, stumbling backward.

Then he screamed, no groaned.

A raw, anguished sound tore from his throat before his knees gave out. He collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

And just like that, he collapsed.

Seraphina hadn't expected the night to spiral into this terrifying drama. One moment she was tangled in Damien's drunken confusion, and the next, he was screaming and collapsing right before her eyes.

The sound of his agony had barely faded when hurried footsteps echoed down the hallway.

Panic seized her.

The door burst open, and members of the family stormed into the room eyes wide, hearts racing only to freeze at the sight before them; Damien, unconscious on the floor, and Seraphina standing over him in the middle of the night.

Her blood ran cold.

Their eyes locked on her full of suspicion, fury, and maybe something worse_betrayal.

She felt the judgment before a single word was spoken.

Seraphina wished the ground would split open and swallow her whole. Her throat tightened as a wave of shame and fear crashed over her. Of all nights, this.

They had already been shattered by heartbreak, by secrets. Trust was fragile nearly nonexistent, and now, she stood in Damien's room with him lying motionless, as if she were the final crack splintering what was left.

"I, I didn't do anything," she stammered, raising her hands instinctively as her voice trembled. "I swear, I didn't even touch him."

But no one looked at her.

They were already on their knees beside Damien, checking his pulse, calling his name, their voices thick with panic and fear.

Seraphina stood there, invisible. Drowning in the silence that wrapped around her like chains.