Isabella POV The floor felt so close before I could fully understand that I was falling.
I could not feel myself.
I only felt the living room turning sideways, the ceiling sliding into the place where the wall should have been, my own arms refusing to do the thing arms are supposed to do when a body starts to drop.
“Get up.” I thought to myself.
The thought arrived clear even as everything else turned to fog.
I pushed myself to hold something so that I wouldn’t injure myself.
But my arm refused to obey.
“Vanessa.” My own voice sounded far away.
Like someone else was speaking.
“Vanessa, please help me…” No answer came, or maybe one did, and I could not catch it through the thickening haze pressing down behind my eyes.
I tried again, dragging my elbow under me, forcing myself to reach the table so that my eyes would stop turning.
I felt like I took a substance because I’m behaving like them.
I needed my phone.
I remembered putting it on the table before we drank the tea.
Before all of this.
I reached toward where I thought the table was.
My hand touched nothing but air.
Then suddenly, I was on the floor.
Crawling and trying to call for help.
“Help,” I tried to say.
But my voice came out broken.
.
I heard voices somewhere but not close.
Two low voices, words arriving whole one moment and dissolving into noise the next.
“Too much, you gave her too much…” “Exactly what you told me…” I knew that second voice.
I knew it.
Even through the panic, through the fog.
Vanessa.
I forced my eyes open.
The room looked upside down, but I saw her.
She was standing over me and watching me.
She wasn’t crying anymore.
That was the first thing I understood.
The tears were gone, shaking hands were gone.
The broken voice was gone.
Everything I had seen at the door had disappeared.
“Vanessa,” I managed.
My lips felt numb around her name.
“What?” “Shh.” She bent down slightly, close enough that I could see her clearly for one second, close enough to see that her earlier cry was all pretense.
“Just breathe, Isabella.
It will be easier if you stop fighting it.” I had too many questions and I think my face showed my confusion.
“I know you have too many questions, so I will answer you.” She stood up and smiled.
“You trust too much.
Just a little cry, you brought down your guard.” Then she laughed.
“You are foolish..
Poor grandma, her favorite granddaughter is in trouble.” I tried to stand, with everything I had.
But my body wouldn’t move.
My strength was gone.
It felt like water pouring out of a broken glass.
I fell back onto the carpet.
Then I heard footsteps.
I tried to push myself to stand up but my body would not obey.
The strength I needed was not there anymore, drained out of me the way water drains from a cracked glass, and I felt myself sinking back down against the carpet despite everything I was trying to do.
I heard another noise approaching.
No Someone stood above me.
I knew that shape too.
“Matteo.” The word barely escaped my mouth.
He crouched down beside me.
His face faded in and out of focus.
He wasn’t smiling, but there was something in his eyes.
Something satisfied, like he had accomplished something.
“Hello, Isabella.” His voice was clear.
The same voice I had fallen asleep listening to for four years.
The same voice that had once made me feel safe.
Now it made me feel afraid.
“You…” I fought to say the word out, “You did this.” “I had help,” he said, glancing briefly toward Vanessa, something passing between the two of them that I was too far gone to fully read.
“But yes.
In the end, this was always going to be me.” I tried to move.
My legs would not respond.
My fingers curled weakly against the carpet, with nothing to hold.
“Grandma…” I forced out my words, “she’ll…she’ll know” “She’ll know exactly what we want her to know,” Matteo said, and bent down, close enough now that I could see every careful, practiced line of his face.
“That her granddaughter had a breakdown.
That the stress of the engagement, the betrayal, the drinking, it all became too much.
That you resorted to drugs to function.
That you needed help, Isabella, and that I, despite everything, was kind enough to make sure you got it.” The room felt so suffocating to me when I heard their plan for me.
“Please,” I whispered.
“Please.” The word came out as a whisper.
It was all I had left.
“Please don’t do this.” For one moment, his expression softened.
He almost looked like the man I had once loved.
“I’m not doing this because I want to hurt you.” His voice was gentle.
That somehow made it worse.
“I’m doing this because you left me no choice.” He reached toward me.
“You should have stayed quiet, Isabella.” My eyes started closing but I fought to keep them open.
“You should have come back to me.” I forced my eyelids open one last time.
I looked at Vanessa.
She was standing with her arms folded.
No tears, guilt, nothing.
I looked back at Matteo, who was still bent beside me.
He was still watching me.
The way someone watches something they have finally finished building.
“It’s almost over,” he said softly.
I don’t know if he was talking to me, or to himself.
“Just a little longer.” My chest felt heavy.
My thoughts scattered everywhere.
Grandma, tea and Vanessa’s smile, and her cry.
Then the door, I should never have opened.
Darkness closed around me.
The room disappeared on me.
The last thing I heard was Matteo’s voice.
Very cold and far away, speaking to someone I could no longer see.
“Make sure she doesn’t wake up.”