Chapter 2: Sweet Merciful Darkness
TAMARA
“How is she?” came the muffled voice outside my room.
“She’s worse than yesterday, King. I’m worried about her,” my mother responded.
After that, I shut them out, pretty much what I had been doing for the past week.
The past one week after my failed wedding. The past one week after my fiancé disappeared—leaving me at the altar and fucking me into oblivion hours before, as if it were some kind of parting gift.
They said there were five stages of grief, but for the past week I had been stuck on stage one— denial. I hadn’t shed a single tear, not even one. I hadn’t left my bed either. The few times I managed to doze off, my mind dragged me right back to the restroom, back to the way Isaiah stared at me with love burning in his eyes, back to the way he kissed me hard on the mouth. Back to how happy he was to call me his wife.
Back in his arms, inhaling his musky scent laced with mint and cigar.
That was why I couldn’t believe he disappeared.
Even if the last three years of our relationship had been a joke, Isaiah didn’t do disappearance. He didn’t do cowardice. That was one of the things I loved most about him, he faced everything head-on.
It should sadden me that I felt nothing; not pain, not sadness, not anger, not even the beat of my own heart. But it didn’t. It was either this or death. I felt like I was floating, stuck between life and death. If someone beat me or punched me, I wouldn’t feel a thing. That was how numb I was.
I knew my parents were worried. I was deteriorating right before their eyes.
Everyone warned me about Isaiah, they called him the bad boy, the devil’s son. But I didn’t care. My family didn’t badmouth him either; they weren’t the type. My mother, instead, loved Isaiah like her own son. She always made sure he was fed, especially since Isaiah never had a mother. He found peace in her. In us.
How could I then believe he just opt and left!!
I couldn’t remember how I got home that day. I just found myself on the bed and I haven’t left ever since.
The squeak of my door opening didn’t move me. I stayed sprawled across my bed, my back to the door—my back to everyone.
“Tamara, honey,” my sister, Magret cooed softly. “You have a guest.”
I didn’t stir. Didn’t respond.
When she heard nothing from me- not that she expected much- she sighed and stood up.
“I’ll just send them in,” she murmured, then turned and shut the door behind her.
The silence remained. And so did I.
Heavy footsteps thudded across my wooden floor. Someone had entered. Curiosity sparked within me—a dangerous, reckless flicker of hope. My heart skipped. For the first time in a week, I felt something as I imagined it was him. Isaiah. Coming back.
I held my breath, body stiff, waiting for his familiar husky voice. That lazy drawl. That careless charm that always made it seem like he had all the time in the world.
But none of that came.
Instead, another voice filled the room. One so similar, but I needed no one to tell me it wasn’t the one I longed for.
“Tamara.”
The deep growl resonated through my room.
I froze.
For the first time in a week, I moved. Slowly, I turned and met the dark eyes of Mathias Cannighan—Isaiah’s father.
He stood tall and massive in my small room, looking like he’d been carved out of a men’s luxury magazine: broad-shouldered, commanding, the picture of masculine elegance.
It was just like looking at an older version of Isaiah. Only this version didn’t hold warmth or love in his eyes. Only indifference.
“You look terrible,” Mathias hissed coldly, his hands buried in his pockets as he glanced around my room.
I didn’t dignify his words with a response. I stayed where I was, wrapping my blanket tighter around myself.
“Your family is worried about you,” Mathias continued, his tone as detached as my soul felt from my body.
“And what is it to you?” I rasped, my voice hoarse and broken from disuse. I sounded like a stranger, like a man, rough and worn. Nothing like the soft voice Isaiah used to say he loved.
“Nothing.” Mathias shrugged, pinning his eyes on me. The resemblance between him and Isaiah was still there, but it was darker. Isaiah had been light. Mathias was pure shadow. An angel and a devil.
“I just have some business with your father, and he won’t shut up about how worried he is about you.” His lip curled in disdain. “I hate wasting time on useless things, you see.”
Did I say I didn’t like him? Correction: I hated him.
“Well, I’m sorry for wasting your precious time, Mr. Cannighan. You can let my father know I’m very fine. See?” I spread my arms out, forcing a hollow smile. “Fine.” I hissed, wishing more than anything that he would just disappear and leave me to rot in the darkness alone.
Mathias smirked, and the resemblance to his son hit me like a fist straight to the chest.
“Now I see my son’s obsession with you, Tamara. You’re one fierce little thing, aren’t you?”
I shot him a glare as I remained silent.
“It’s strange, though, don’t you think?” he continued smoothly, strolling around my room as if he owned it. “The first thing I expected you to ask when you saw me was if I knew where Isaiah was.” His eyes locked on mine from across the room, holding me captive.
I scoffed, venom lacing every syllable. “That’s because even if Isaiah was throwing himself off a cliff, you’d be the last to know, Mr. Cannighan. I know all about your relationship with your son— or rather, the lack of one.”
Mathias’s face didn’t flicker. He just stared, unblinking, the way Isaiah used to, except where Isaiah’s gaze brought butterflies and warmth, his father’s gaze sparked only anger and disgust.
“Anyway,” he said coldly, brushing of my words like they meant nothing, “it’s good to know that your little charade of a relationship is finally over. I’m certain wherever my son crawled off to, it was to escape you and your overbearing family.” His voice dropped into a growl as he reached for the doorknob. “So I suggest you forget about him too, little Tamara. Because trust me, the son I know has already forgotten all about you.”
And just like that, he was gone.
I stared after him, stunned, wondering if that conversation had even been real or just some cruel hallucination born of grief.
Still drowning in all the words I wished I’d thrown back at him, my sister suddenly burst into my room. Her face was blotchy, her eyes swollen and leaking tears that streaked her cheeks. I gave her a blank look, uninterested.
“Not now, Mag,” I muttered, pulling the blanket tighter around me.
But she didn’t move. She just stood there in the middle of my room, wailing like someone had died.
A chill settled over me. This wasn’t about Shawn.
I turned to face her, my throat tightening. “W… wh… what’s going on, Maggie?” My voice trembled. I didn’t know if I could take one more blow, and yet, some desperate, foolish spark inside me whispered: Was Isaiah back? Did he come back for me?
Magret didn’t answer. She just cried harder.
“Maggie!” I screamed.
“Y… you n-need to s-see this, Tee.” She hiccupped between sobs.
I wanted to roll my eyes, to tell her I didn’t care. But Magret never cried like this. This was serious.
Tearing the blanket from my body, I pushed past her, my bare feet carrying me into the hallway, then down into the sitting room. My parents were standing in front of the television, stiff and frozen. My father’s shoulders looked like stone, and my mother, my mother was crying. My mother never cried.
My pulse thundered in my ears. My body shook uncontrollably as I stepped closer, every nerve on edge.
The newscaster’s voice blurred into nothing, just noise. My eyes locked on the red headline screaming across the screen:
“BODY IDENTIFIED TO BE 28-YEAR-OLD ISAIAH CANNIGHAN — SON OF BUSINESS MOGUL, MATHIAS CANNIGHAN…”
Then his face appeared, the face I saw every time I closed my eyes, the face I loved more than my own. Beautiful, perfect, forever carved into my soul.
But the words… they didn’t register. Not until Magret let out another piercing scream beside me.
Then it hit me.
All five stages of grief slammed into me in a single devastating instant. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. They didn’t trickle in one by one, they came as a storm, a violent hurricane that tore through my body and left nothing behind.
The floor disappeared beneath me. The room spun. I didn’t even realize I was falling until I heard the distant screams of my name, felt frantic hands clawing at me, trying to hold me up.
And then, darkness.
Sweet, merciful darkness.
I prayed it would be the end.
Only it wasn’t.