Sleeping With The Enemy by M.N Providence

no
choice,’ he repeated in a calmer voice. ‘Only when I started peddling drugs was
I able to put food on Ma’s table. Only when I did that was I able to have
decent clothes to wear.’
    Rosina looked
down. When she looked back up at his face she demanded, ‘Did you ever think about
the millions of young lives you were destroying?’
    ‘You get so involved
in bad actions that you cannot tell wrong from right…’
    She braced
herself upright for her next question. ‘Have you ever killed anyone?’
    ‘I have,’ he said
quietly.
    Instant shock
covered her eyes. She covered her face in her hands. ‘Oh God!’
    He edged closer
to her. ‘It was either me or them. In the world we live in that’s the code we
live by.’
    He grabbed her
wrists and pulled her hands from her face.
    She pushed him
away. ‘Go away, Ferdinand. Please go away.’
    He raised his
hands in surrender and took a step back. ‘You are angry.’
    She took a while
to answer. ‘I’m not angry that you are what you are; I’m angry that I’ve fallen
in love with you, and everyone knows what the Mafia does.’ They faced each there
silently for a moment. ‘You stand for all the wrong things I’ve been trying all
my life not to get involved in.’
    They stood
there, facing each other, and did not speak for a long while. Tears fell from
Rosina’s eyes, and when she spoke her voice quavered with emotion. ‘Go away,
please.’
    ‘Rosina, please
just accept—.’
    ‘I said go
away.’
    A crowd cried
suddenly in unison. ‘Go away!’
    He turned around
and was surprised to find the whole bunch of kids behind him, urging him to
leave.
    ‘Go away!’ they
repeated their chorus. ‘She doesn’t want to talk to you.’
    He lifted up his
hands in surrender, walked slowly back to his convoy of cars and got inside the
limo. He had a pensive, pained look on his face as the chauffeur drove the big
car out of the orphanage.
     
    * *
* * *

He was attacked
by terrible angst. Beside the loss of his mother, losing Rosina was the single
most painful thing to ever happen to him. He had in reality spent few moments
with Rosina, but during that time he had fallen deeply in love with her. He
loved her more than he had thought himself capable of loving someone.
    She had waltzed
into his heart and taken over his senses. He would give everything he had now
to have her back in his life. Life was so futile, so worthless – without her. She
came into his dreams and whispered sweet, wonderful things in his ears. In
those dreams he made love to her passionately and tenderly… and then he woke up
to the reality of her not being there next to him.
    The pain was so
intense he found no other remedy for it but to go to her and see her – even if
just for a moment.
    When he arrived at
her apartment he knocked on the door. She opened the door slightly ajar and saw
him. ‘Please let me in,’ he begged.
    ‘She shook her
head, tears springing into her eyes. ‘Go away!’ she slammed the door shut in
his face.
    She leaned against
the door on her back and then slid down as the tears rolled in torrents down
her face. Her phone rang and she stared at its screen and saw that it was him calling
her. She hurled it forcefully at the nearest wall and it crashed onto the wall and
fell silent. She hugged her knees to her chest and burst into a bitter sob.
    He was there, on
the other side of the door, hearing her pained sobs, and he cried too. The pain
in his heart was too much to take. Eventually, reluctantly, he steeled himself and
walked away. He took the elevator downstairs and descended to the streets of
New York. He took a cab to the Hudson River. He walked along the river as the
sun set. New York was alive at dusk, and the river was a beautiful sight to
behold at this time of the day, but he didn’t see the beauty in it all. His heart
was sore, and his mind was numb. He wanted a bullet to his chest that would end
all this pain. He walked aimlessly about, images of her filling his