CHAPTER 16 Axel
Axel
Two weeks of texting Delia and getting nothing back. Not a word. Not even a read receipt. Just silence that grew louder every day.
I stood in my penthouse at midnight, staring at my phone like it might suddenly light up with her name. Like she might finally respond and tell me she was okay. That she just needed time. That this wasn't permanent.
The phone stayed dark.
Work had become impossible. Mark kept giving me concerned looks, and the board had started asking questions about my distraction.
I didn’t care.
All I could think about was Delia on the other side of that closed door, alone in her apartment, drowning while I stood on the shore with no way to reach her.
My phone rang, Daniel’s name on the screen.
“She still won’t answer my calls.” His voice was rough. Like he’d been drinking or crying or both. “I’ve been trying for days. She won’t pick up.”
“I know.”
“I went to her apartment today. She wouldn’t let me in. Just talked through the door, said she was fine.” His breath shook. “She’s not fine, Axel. I could hear it in her voice. She sounded—”
He stopped. I knew what he meant. I’d heard it too. The last time Delia spoke to me. That flatness. That hollow quiet. Like everything inside her had been emptied out, leaving just the shell.
“I’ll go check on her,” I said.
“How? She’s been clear about wanting space.”
“I don’t care what she wants. I care about whether she’s okay.”
Daniel was quiet for a moment. “You sound like me after Dad died. When Mom shut down and I kept trying to force her to function. It didn’t work then either.”
“So what am I supposed to do? Just let her drown?”
“I don’t know. But breaking down her door won’t help.”
After we hung up, I sat in the dark and thought about how Delia was punishing herself for not being at the hospital when it happened.
She blamed me. She hadn’t said it explicitly but I could feel it. Every time she looked at me she saw us in bed together.
She blamed me, and maybe she was right to.
Maybe if I hadn’t been there, she would have answered Daniel’s first call. Would have gone to the hospital sooner. Then, she would have had more time with Elena before the end.
Maybe I’d stolen that from her.
The thought sat in my chest like a stone. Heavy. Suffocating.
The next morning, I drove to Brooklyn.
Her building looked the same as always. Her door at the end of the hall used to open before I even knocked.
Now it stayed closed.
I knocked. “Delia. It’s me.”
Nothing.
I knocked again. “I know you’re in there. Your neighbor said she heard music yesterday.”
Still nothing.
“I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”
Five minutes passed. Then ten. I was about to knock again when the door opened.
Delia stood there looking like someone I barely recognized.
Her hair was pulled into a knot that looked like it hadn’t been touched in days. Paint-stained clothes that said she’d tried to work. Dark circles under her eyes that made her face look hollow. Gaunt.
But it was her eyes that destroyed me—empty. Completely empty.
Like someone had turned off all the lights inside her and left only darkness.
“What do you want?” she asked. Her voice was stripped bare.
“To see if you’re okay.”
“I’m okay. You can leave now.”
Every instinct I had was screaming to pull her against me. To wrap my arms around her and hold her until she stopped looking so breakable, to breathe her in and remind both of us that she was still here. Still alive.
But I couldn’t move. Because something in her posture said don’t touch me.
“Can I come in?” I asked.
“No.”
“Delia please—”
“What do you need, Axel? What are you here for?”
“I’m here to check on you.”
“You’ve checked. I’m alive. You can go now.”
“That’s not how this works.”
“That’s exactly how this works. I asked for space. You’re supposed to give it to me.”
“It’s been two weeks.”
“And?”
“And you’re not answering anyone’s calls. Daniel’s worried. I’m worried.”
“I don’t have the capacity to worry about other people’s worry right now.” She leaned against the doorframe—the movement looked exhausting, like standing upright took everything she had. “My mother is dead. I get to fall apart alone if I want to.”
The words were sharp. Defensive. But underneath I could hear how tired she was. How completely done.
I took a step closer, reaching out to touch her arm. To offer some kind of comfort. Something.
She flinched back.
Like my touch would burn her.
The rejection hit so hard I forgot how to breathe—forgot how to do anything except stand there with my hand extended toward someone pulling away from me like I was dangerous.
“Don’t,” she said quietly.
“I just want to—”
“Don’t touch me. Please.”
Please. She was begging.
I dropped my hand. “Okay.”
“Are you painting?” I asked after a moment, desperate to say anything that wasn’t about how much it hurt that she couldn’t stand my touch anymore.
Something bitter flickered in her gaze. “I’m trying, but I can’t. Colors look wrong. Everything looks wrong. I can’t even look at a canvas without wanting to throw up.”
“That will pass. You’ll get through this with time.”
“Thank you, Dr. Irving. I wasn’t aware.” Her voice was cutting now. Sharp enough to draw blood. “Is there anything else you’d like to diagnose while you’re here? Any other obvious observations about my mental state?”
“I’m not trying to diagnose you.”
“Then what are you trying to do?”
“Help you.”
“I don’t want your help.”
“Too bad. You’re getting it anyway.”
She stared at me. Something flickered in her eyes. Anger, maybe. Frustration. At least it was something.
“You can’t force me to accept help I don’t want.”
“Watch me.”
“This isn’t how love works, Axel. You don’t get to decide what I need.”
“Then tell me what you need, and I’ll give it to you.”
“I need everyone to stop asking what I need.” Her voice climbed, sharp and wounded. “I need Daniel to stop calling. I need Sarah to stop showing up with food I won’t eat. I need you to stop standing in my hallway looking at me like I’m falling apart and you’re supposed to catch me.”
“You’re not falling apart.”
“Yes, I am. And I get to do it alone if I want to.”
I wanted to grab her. Pull her into me despite the way she flinched. Hold her until she stopped pushing everyone away. To fix this somehow, even though I knew I couldn’t.
But I just stood there. Keeping my distance. Giving her the space she needed even though it was killing me. “Shutting everyone out won’t bring her back.”
“You think I don’t know that?” She was crying now. Angry tears that made her face red and blotchy. “You think I’m doing this because I’m stupid? Because I don’t understand that my mother is dead and never coming back?”
She wiped her face roughly with the back of her hand. “Daniel wants me functional. Sarah wants me communicative. You want me to let you help. And I’m tired. I’m so tired of trying to be anything other than this.”
“No one expects you to be okay.”
“Everyone expects something. Even when they say they don’t, they do.
They expect me to eat. To shower. To answer my phone.
To accept help gracefully. To grieve in a way that’s manageable for them.
” She looked at me directly. “You expect me to let you in. To let you help and grab onto you while I’m drowning.
But I don’t want to grab onto anything. I just want to sink. ”
The words hit me like a sharp stab. Like she’d reached out with a knife and pierced me in the chest.
“So that’s it?” My voice came out rough. Raw. “You’re just going to give up?”
“I’m not giving up. I’m just not fighting anymore. There’s a difference.”
“What can I do?” My voice was desperate. Like I was the one drowning now. “Tell me what I can do and I’ll do it.”
“Leave me alone.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know. Weeks. Months. Maybe forever.”
Forever. The word sat between us like a wall I couldn’t climb.
I looked at her standing there in the doorway. At the woman I loved looking like a stranger.
And I was so afraid. Right now, she almost looked like her—my mother. The same grief in her eyes that I’d seen before the world took everything from me.
“I love you,” I said quietly. “That hasn’t changed. That won’t change. I’m not going anywhere even if you push me away.”
“Love isn’t enough when you’re drowning.”
“Maybe not. But it’s something to grab onto.”
She looked at me resigned. Then, the door closed, the lock clicking in place.
I stood there for a long time. Just stood there staring at that closed door knowing Delia was on the other side. Eventually I went back to my car.
I sat in the driver’s seat with my hands on the steering wheel and felt something in my chest break.
I’d been trying so hard to be strong. To be patient. To give her space while also checking on her. To balance what she said she needed with what I knew she needed.
But I couldn’t do it anymore.
Because Delia was drowning—and she wouldn’t let me save her. Wouldn’t even let me touch her. Had flinched from my hand like my touch was poison.
She’d decided to sink and all I could do was watch. And let it happen. Again.
I drove to Daniel’s apartment. He opened the door looking like he hadn’t slept in days either.
“How is she?” he asked.
“Worse than we thought.”
We sat in his living room drinking scotch at three in the afternoon.
Two men who loved Delia, trying to figure out how to save someone who didn’t want saving.
Daniel poured more scotch. “After Dad died, Mom did this. Shut down completely. It was like she’d built a wall around herself and wouldn’t let anyone through.”
“How long did it last?”
“Months. And then one day she just got up and went back to teaching, like nothing had happened.” He drank. “But it wasn’t nothing. She was never really the same after that.”
“What do we do?”
“I don’t know. I’m a doctor. I fix bodies. I don’t know how to fix this.”
We sat in silence, drinking scotch that tasted like failure.
“She blames me,” I said finally—the words I’d been holding inside for two weeks. “Delia. She blames me—for being with her when Elena fell.”
“That’s not fair to you.”
“Maybe. But it’s how she feels.” I stared into my glass. “She won’t say it, but I can see it every time she looks at me.”
“It’s not your fault her mother fell.”
“I know that. You know that. But Delia doesn’t know that.
Or she knows it logically, but emotionally she’s still stuck.
” I finished my scotch. Poured more. “She was happy. We were happy. And then her whole world exploded. So now being happy equals betrayal in her mind. And I equal being happy. So I equal betrayal.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Wait. What else can I do?”
Daniel looked at me, then took a long sip.
“You really love her.”
“Yes.”
“What if she’s never ready?”
The corners of my lips twitched sardonically. “Then I guess I’ll wait forever,” I said.
I’d spent seventeen years wanting to love her. I’d wait however long it took for her to break out of it.
Delia wasn’t my mother. She was strong. Fierce.
The sea wouldn’t hold her forever. It was only a matter of time before she swam back to the surface.