HAROLD’S POV

"Joëlle." I know it's her. I know that hair anywhere. She turns and smiles, all soft and beautiful like she always was. It doesn't stir my heart the same way it used to. It stirs absolutely nothing.

"What is this place?" I ask her. Am I dead? Is that why I'm seeing her?

"This is a little decision room. Most people die on impact. But some people, like yourself hang in there for a long time. They float between life and death for so long that they are eventually given a choice. This is your time to choose."

While she calls it a room, I see no walls. We are standing in a void, it's so dark that it looks endless. Only a little light is shining upon the two of us, just enough to make me see nothing but her.

"Why are you in this room then?" I ask. She steps closer. "To help you decide. I am dead, I am a ghost, I can be anywhere. You're stuck in the middle so you're here too."

I step away. "And whoever made this room chose to send you here so you can do what? Trap me again and take me to hell?" She smiles. "Why not heaven?"

"I've killed enough people to know I'm not going there. And let's face it Joëlle, you were never meant for heaven." She sighs. "You hate me now." She realises. I want to laugh.

"I guess shoving that knife in your chest wasn't that clear of a message." She smiles.

"It wasn't. Because you didn't hate me then. I was alive Harry. I wasn't dead right then. I might be unconscious but I was breathing. I know you held onto me, I know you didn't let anyone take me away from you.

I know you loved me, and I know you wanted me to wake up. I died on that helicopter but before all of that I knew it was your arm around me. You love me." This cunt. Can I strangle her ghost? Would that make a difference?

"Why did you do it Joëlle?"

"I miss hearing Joe from your mouth." She reaches a hand up to touch my cheek but I swat it away. "Keep your hands to yourself, otherwise ghost or not, I will kill you again."

She sighs like I'm exhausting. "You have changed."

"Falling in love with the wrong people does that to you." She arches a perfect brow. "You're a murderer too. How are you better than me, mon amour?" I sneer at the nickname.

(My love)

"You wanted to kill innocent people. I killed the people who supported your cause." She shakes her head. "I didn't want to kill them. Either of them. I just wanted love, Harry. How is that wrong?"

Love? That fucking thing again. It did no one any good.

"Letting other people die to get love is wrong Joëlle."

"I KNOW! Okay? I know it was wrong and I feel bad about it! I can't go fix the past because I am dead but I was a girl who was starved of affection. Do you know what it feels like to grow up in a home where neither of your parent cares for you?

Do you know what it feels like when your mother calls you a mistake every single day after you tirelessly take care of her other two children?! I was a maid in that house. No. No. No. No. Maids are actually paid. I was a slave.

My mother was a drug addict, Harry. When she didn't have money, she would tell her suppliers to take their pick from one of her children. I was lucky they didn't like children but that didn't change the trauma. The pain! The fear of which one of them would pick me and take everything!"

Her screams falter when I scoff before a laugh bubbles up in my throat. "Poor little Joëlle was scared of getting raped so she let her father and other men attempt that on another girl without a word." I clap in her face.

"I have no sympathy for you Joëlle. None. Now tell me how to get out of here." She shakes her head. "You have to come with me."

"Manipulate, manipulate. Do you do anything besides that? You told me this is a decision room. I decide to stay where I want and I want to stay the fuck away from you. Tell me how to get out of here."

She walks around me contemplating a response or maybe biding her time. "Someone needs to take you wherever you want to go. A dead can take you to the afterlife. A living can take you back to life. I'm the only one here."

I cross my arms over my chest. "And why is that?"

"Because you have nothing to live for. This room is your own place Harry. You made it. It will have people that have an impact on your life. And look at that, the only person you invited is your dead girlfriend. You still think we aren't meant to be?"

"Yes." I turn away from her to look around the void. There is no one else here. Did my brain really not come up with a single person I would want to live for?

"You're lying." I ignore her blabber. I want to find a way out. I'm not looking to die just yet. "You once told me you'll love spending your life with me. That you would love me forever-"

"Why do you keep acting like it's my fault Joëlle? Do you still not think what you did was wrong? You say you wanted love. Well, I loved you Joëlle! I fucking loved you.

But you were the one who chose to be a disgrace to humans and pick a rapist and murderer over me! I would've loved you more than anything but that just wasn't fucking enough for you, was it?"

I shake my head a couple times as I watch her. "You disgust me." I say. "I can't believe I let you ruin love for me. I can't believe I've spent most of my life hating you. You don't even deserve to be thought about."

"But you think of me. You think of me often Harry. You think about what could've been. You remember the time when you loved me and I loved you and how happy we were then. We can live it again.

Once you choose to come with me, you can also choose what you remember. You can forget all the bad I did and we can go back to being what we used to be. It will all become a bad dream."

I pause and stare. All my life I hoped that whatever happened was a bad dream. That the woman I loved wasn't truly so heartless. I would've begged whoever would listen to just tell me all that happened was a lie.

Because I loved this woman. The young and naive part of me loved this woman. And while I am ashamed to admit, but I loved her till way after her death.

I hated what she did but I just couldn't stop missing her. I just couldn't stop hoping she would come back somehow. That we could go back to the way things were.

Now she is telling me I can do all of it. I can forget everything that was wrong and just be with her in the way I wanted. We will both be dead. I have been dead since she died anyway. There is no life in me. No spark.

Joëlle walks closer and cups my cheek. "We couldn't live together but when we are both dead, we can stay together then. You buried me next to you. Isn't this what you wanted."

Maybe. Maybe this is what I wanted. To just die, finish the hollow existence I'm living in and be free. Now I can be free. Once I forget, it will be like nothing happened, nothing ever went wrong. We would be those kids again who wanted to live a life together from the start.

I can be with the woman I was supposed to be with.

"Harold."

Her hands fall down from my face and her blue eyes look confused. Joëlle looks behind me with a frown before sighing. "You found someone to convince you to live." I frown too.

"What do you mean?" Joëlle points behind me. "There is someone there." I turn and the blindness from Joëlle's rose painted life disappears.

"Baby." I call out. My wife has tears stuck in her eyes as she asks me a simple question. "Will you leave me for her?"

What the fuck was I doing?! I can't forget what Joëlle did. One day when I see Faisal and Ananya again, even if it is in the afterlife, their heart would shatter knowing I chose to forget everything for this woman who ruined their lives.

And Inayat? What will I ever say to her? That she was right? I would abandon her for another chance with Joëlle? Absolutely not. I walk over to my wife but I don't reach her. A glass wall separates us. I bang on it.

"What the fuck is this?!"

"She is in the land of the living. You are more dead than alive now Harry. Hence the wall."

"Get it removed! I want to go to her! She shouldn't be alone, she gets scared!" Joëlle comes to stand beside me to stare at my wife peculiarly. I keep banging on the glass.

"Pretty girl." Her ghost says. "Seems important. Once she is dead, she can join us too."

"Talk about my wife dying again and I don't care that you're already dead, I will kill you again." Joëlle looks at me.

"So you got married. That's why she is here. To compete for your life." She shakes her head like she pities Inayat. Then she holds my hand. "You are almost dead Harry. Think about your life with me and let her go. She could find another person."

She could but she wouldn't. I don't know who will understand her. Who will worry about her and keep her safe. Nor do I want another man near my wife. I jerk my hand out of her hold and glare.

"Stop it." I grit out. "You tried. You pleaded your case, now I say I don't want to go with you." She shakes her head again. "You had a choice when we started here Harry. You've been dying since. Your pulse is weakening. Your brain is giving up.

You don't have a choice anymore. Bid your wife goodbye and come with me." I never feared death. I had nothing to live for so I didn't care what happened to me. Now? It's the complete fucking opposite.

Who will look after Inayat? Who will take care of her? Understand her? Protect her from my ridiculous extended family and my father?

Inayat places a hand on the other side of the glass and I place mine over it from my side. "I don't want to leave you." I tell her. She cries. Tears fall down, one after another until my wife is sobbing.

"I'll be so alone without you." She says. "There is no one else I consider my family the way I do you." I know. I know she doesn't. It breaks my heart to think I'll leave her with no hope or support.

I do have a will that states all my assets go to her and my mother. She wouldn't have to worry about money but Inayat always needed more than financial security.

"It's time to go Harry." Joëlle grabs my arm and drags me behind her. I feel lifeless until I hear another sob. "I don't want you to go Harold. Please don't leave me."

Fuck this shit.

I pull away from Joëlle's hold for the last time and watch her look at me helplessly. "I would never be yours Joëlle. You are buried beside Hadrian, not me. When I die, I want to be beside my wife. I want to be buried beside her and I want to live beside her in the afterlife too. Not you, her. Goodbye Joëlle."

I turn around and punch the glass. Both the women shriek as my knuckles tear but the glass doesn't budge. I keep at it, punching and kicking the glass. I was brought here to make a choice. I'm not leaving with someone who chose for me instead.

The glass cracks from my punches before I give it a final blow and it shatters.

~~~~~~

My eyes jerk open and I shut them back when the bright light burns them. There is so much noise around me. People running, shouting, machines beeping.

"Harry?! Oh my! Harry!" My mother falls onto my chest as she sobs. I find my father, Cassandra and her mother right beside my bed. "Mum." I croak.

My father looks sad for the first fucking time in my entire life but I look for someone who isn't even here. Mum pushes the hair away from my face and kisses my forehead. "We thought we lost you. You almost died." She starts sobbing.

"Where is Inayat?" I ask. Cassandra scoffs before shaking her head. Mum wipes her tears and hesitates before speaking. "She left. She blamed herself for what happened to you, and said she wanted to work on herself so she left."

What the fuck? "And everyone just let her go?"

"She is better off gone."

"Shut up Cassandra." I look back at mum. "Where is she?"

"She is with her parents in India. Did you know she is the princess of Hyderabad?" Of course she is a fucking princess. But she never talked about her parents. I believed she despised them.

"Why would you just let her go like that? I need to get her back. She gets uncomfortable in new places."

"It isn't new." Cassandra says. She is talking too much, it's pissing me off. "She has been gone since your accident. You've been in a coma for a whole year, Harry."

~~~~~~