Ofelia
I became a bird with broken wings that still somehow managed to fly despite the pain. Or maybe it was because of the pain that I was able to continue the show with tears streaming down my cheeks.
I became a weeping raven on stage for everyone to see. Daniel whispered, “Are you okay?” I couldn’t answer when I was drowning in my own tears.
Suddenly, the show became about something else. Not just the madness of man, but the pain of loss and love. The raven didn’t just become a taunting spector meant to haunt Daniel. I became the embodiment of sadness. A ghost in as much pain as he was.
It only grew stronger the more I danced and whirled. I was whirling in limbo and all I had left was heartbreak. Because what else could I do now that my greatest tragedy had come to pass?
My future had been set in stone the moment I’d been born and my parents decided to name me what they had.
.
A woman who drowned in her own despair.
I was drowning then and couldn’t come up for air. Even when the show ended and the lights shone down on Daniel and I. Even when the curtain closed and then opened for us to take our bow. When the crowd gave us a standing ovation and their applause roared through my ears and deafened me.
“, what’s wrong?”
I couldn’t speak. I staggered away from him, clutching my stomach as I gasped through the pain.
Fabián.
Mi querido Fabián was gone from the world. He’d left me alone to drown.
I pushed into my dressing room, so distraught I didn’t notice the man standing there at first. And when I did, I couldn’t even scream.
“Are you here to kill me?” For a second, the idea was almost appealing. “Get it over with.”
The man was a Raven Brother. With dark hair down to his shoulders, dark jeans and black leather, and the tattoo of a feather on his neck. He didn’t look like Fabián, but there was something about them that was similar.
“Why would I do that?” He looked genuinely confused.
I sobbed, doubling over, hands tearing at my tights like getting them off would miraculously help me breathe better. “I don’t know! Isn’t that what you Raven Brothers do?”
I was being bitter and mean, but I couldn’t find it in me to care.
Fabián. Fabián. Fabián.
“.” The man had a soft tone that had me looking up. His eyes were such a dark brown they were nearly black. “Grab your things. We have to go.”
It was pointless now. There was nowhere to go. There was nowhere in the world I’d be able to find happiness now that Fabián was gone.
The man seemed to read what I was thinking and I didn’t know how. We’d never met. I didn’t know him. We were complete strangers. But he seemed to see, because he stepped forward and took my cold, clammy hands in his warm ones.
“Grab your things, little raven. Please. It’ll all make sense when we get there.”
For a second we just stared at each other. I didn’t have to go with him, I knew that. We didn’t even know one another. He could be trying to lead me to certain death. But it didn’t matter. His eyes spoke of an old, kind soul. And maybe I wasn’t the best at reading people. Maybe this was all a colossal mistake. But there was something in his eyes that reminded me of Fabián.
And it was that reason only that I nodded and whispered, “Okay.”
I was sure I was being searched for. Everyone had seen my tears. Everyone had seen the manner in which I’d staggered away off stage. Sometimes art could be an overwhelming thing. It could consume the soul and swallow you whole if you weren’t careful.
They probably thought that’s what happened to me. That’d I’d immersed myself so deeply into a role that I’d been gasping and crying to get out of it.
It had happened before, and it would continue to happen.
Just like I knew it would earn us several minutes of reprieve to leave the theatre to wherever he had to take me right before the chaos.
Surely they were looking now. Surely my papá and mamá were confused as to my whereabouts.
Good riddance to them.
My thoughts became a torrent of emotions. The tears came, but everything inside me kept piling on.
And the strange Raven Brother, whose name I still didn’t know, let me fill the silence with my sobs and tears as he drew me away, further and further.
Until he finally broke our shared silence. “We’re here.”
Before I could ask where here was, he was hopping out of the car and opening my side for me. I watched with trepidation and a hollow ache as he then grabbed our bags–mine, Fabián’s, and his own–from the back.
“Come on, little raven,” he urged gently. “It’ll be alright.”
I took a breath and slipped outside. The night air was chilly, and I hadn’t bothered to change into something more appropriate. I wore my raven costume and ballet shoes. My feet were sore and my eyes were burning.
Yet I followed this stranger into the dark. Facing his back and the bulking bags that had once marked my future. That sadness came again and gripped me for however many miles we walked. I paid no attention to our surroundings, unaware of where we were.
And then the man walking just... stopped. And he stepped away...
...revealing someone beyond.
My breath caught in my throat and the tears spilled anew.
“.”
That voice didn’t belong to a ghost.
It was real.
Fabián was alive.
He was in front of me. And then, he was running towards me. I felt numb until he collided against me and his arms wrapped around my body. I was enveloped in his familiar scent, in arms that had become my very reason for living.
Surrounded by him, I was home.
“Fabián.” His name was a broken wail leaving my mouth. I gripped him, holding tightly, wondering if maybe I was mad, after all. But he was real. He was solid. He was in front of me.
When he pulled away, he revealed a face completely scraped. His clothes were tattered, charred in places. He was bruised. Harmed.
But alive.
“Fabián, what happened?”
He smiled through split lips and winced when he did it. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to your ballet, princesita. I had an issue...”
“Fabián, what the hell happened?!”
He winced as my voice rose to hysterics.
“Your father and his father conspired against him and planted a bomb in his car.” The man, who’d been silent, spoke up.
I turned to him, mouth dropping open. “What?!”
The man shrugged, his bulky frame moving up and down as he shifted the bags on his shoulders. “I overheard them. Fabián’s dad bartered Fabián’s life for a deal with the politician that would make the Raven Brother drug empire run smoother and without police involvement. Your father wanted him away from you in exchange.”
My blood went cold.
My papá, who publicly prided himself on not falling into bed with criminals like other corrupt politicians had before him, had committed the most atrocious of acts. Our fathers had tried to kill him.
“Oh, Fabián.” I held him close, my heart breaking for him, for us. For everything. “I’m so sorry.”
He winced. “It’s fine. Have you met Julián Cuervo? My cousin.”
Julián nodded in my direction.
“How did you survive a bomb, Fabián?”
“By being a lucky hijo de puta,” Julián murmured.
Fabián winced again. “I jumped out of the car right before it blew up.”
My fingers curled around his arms. I tried to imagine the pain, the fear. It explained his injuries. The scrapes on his face that could have only been road burn, the charred remnants of his clothes, hanging on by dark threads. The bruises from the impact of the fall...
“I’m so sorry for putting you through that, princesa.” Fabián leaned down and pressed a kiss to my mouth. “It’ll never, ever, happen again. Because we’re leaving. Now. The three of us.”
“Okay.”
“Once my father finds out that Julián helped me, he won’t be safe with the Raven Brothers. Not as long as my father is still the leader. He has to come with us. And there’s not much time. They’ll find out I didn’t die in that explosion. They’ll find out you’re missing. We need to be far away when that happens.”
I tasted the salt of tears on my lips and nodded. “Yes, Fabián.”
He sighed his relief, and I wondered how he’d ever thought I’d change my mind. He was my everything. My greatest tragedy and my one true happiness. And once we were far enough away from this mess and our families, well...
Our lives could finally begin.