I love you.

Yours forever, Gabriel *****

January 5th Baby, I just woke up from a horrible nightmare. The clock says it's just past three a.m. In the dream, I was holding you while you were bleeding again. This time there was so much more blood, not that there wasn't when you actually died. In the nightmare, the entire room was flooding with your blood and I was swimming in it, trying to keep your head above it. No matter how hard I tried to swim to the hotel room door, so we could escape, the waves of blood kept crashing into me, pushing me towards the far wall.

Tears were streaming down my face when I woke up and, even now, I don't dare dry them. They're where they belong.

The good dreams are the ones where I'm living that day all over again and asking you to come with me back to Miami, to my mother's funeral. You console me, and I let you. We say love words to each other and at the funeral, you hold my hand.

Even when I'm awake, I'm drowning in my own regret and sorrow. Looking at your picture, I remember that fantastic week in Barbados and live off the memories. Sometimes I hate having that picture of us, of you. Seeing what I had, and literally killed, makes me so angry.

I realize how sick I am too, because, to me, you look so d.a.m.n s.e.xy in that picture and in my memories. Becoming aroused by thoughts of you seems so f.u.c.ked up. I'm your murderer!

I can't help it. I love you so much. I still need you. Do you need me? Will we ever be together again?

Yours Forever, Gabriel *****

March 10th My beautiful girl, Happy Birthday, baby! You would have been 19 today. Aunt Lucy insisted on taking me out for my birthday last month. Max even flew down from New York, though I told him I didn't feel like celebrating. Of course, he completely ignored my wishes, even picked out the suit for me to wear. The relief on their faces when I told them that I'd resumed my martial arts cla.s.ses would have been comical had I been in the mood for humor.

Who else is thinking about you today, Annabelle? Are Jackson and Brent together now, getting drunk in your honor? When they toast, do I get mentioned in it? Are they planning my demise even now? If Jackson's goal is to torture me, he's doing a d.a.m.n good job of it. I'm living in my own personal purgatory.

I'll admit it. I'm wasted as I write this. I drove to the beach house today, figuring that if you were still alive, this is where I'd want to take you on your birthday. The place where we first made love.

I drank half a bottle of something. I don't know exactly what because I just grabbed the first thing I saw when I stopped at the liquor store on the way here this morning. I'd thought about getting a birthday cake, but decided that was too morbid. Plus, I don't have much of an appet.i.te today.

If I hadn't killed you, would we have been married by now? Would you have said 'yes' had I asked? Or would you have been too independent to want marriage and labeled us life partners instead?

The 'what ifs' are a b.i.t.c.h. I miss you so much.

Love you, my angel.

I'm an idiot.

Forever Yours, Gabriel Closing the journal, I throw it against the nearest wall. Then, drunk and in a panic, I fall out of the dining room chair and crawl on my hands and knees to retrieve it. Once it's back in my hands, relief rushes through me.

Please hear me, Annabelle. Please answer back.

Chapter 35.

Gabriel July 1st Annabelle, You've been dead over a year now. At this point I'm starting to think he's not coming for me. Maybe Jackson's dead too, killed while on an a.s.signment. I wish I knew where your grave is. I'd keep it overflowing with flowers. It'd be something to do, at least.

I'm about to do something I'm not completely convinced I want to do. Max came home at the end of May for the summer and has been badgering me to move to New York for the start of the new school year in August. He claims NYU would suit me, whatever the f.u.c.k that means. At the very least, going to cla.s.ses would get me out of this hermit existence. Do I deserve even that much of a life, though? No, but I don't know what else to do. Jackson didn't come as I'd expected, I'm starting to think he might not.

I tried using running the businesses I'd inherited from my dad as an excuse, but Max called me out on it. I haven't done a d.a.m.n thing in regards to them in the past year and my aunt Lucy has a handle on them. I'm not needed to run them and I'm not in the least bit interested.

Sometimes, I wish my dad really was the monster you claimed him to be. Maybe then, I wouldn't have shot you when my mom killed herself over him.

No amount of remorse or guilt, or even love, can redeem me of my crime. It hurts just to wonder what you were thinking and feeling as you died. Did I break your heart? I know I broke my own. Did you hate me? Did you curse your love for me? The betrayal you must have felt because of the promises I broke. But I didn't break one promise. I promised to love you forever and I do, I will.

Maybe going to NYU will provoke Jackson into action. If he thinks I'm moving on with my life and happy, will he kill me then?

Yours Forever, Gabriel *****

November 24th Anna, Max and I are flying down to Miami for Thanksgiving break. Aunt Lucy has a big dinner planned for our dwindling family of three. When we return to New York next week for the final weeks of the semester, there'll be term papers to write and exams to prepare for.

When Max asked me to move to New York with him, I think he had something else in mind. After spending his first year in the dorms, he thought us getting a penthouse together would be good times. He's been so disappointed. He hasn't been able to turn me from a hermit into a wild college student.

Besides going to cla.s.s, the gym or out to eat, I rarely leave our apartment. Being out in the crowded city doesn't make me feel any less alone than I do in my bedroom. At least in there, with music playing, I don't have to deal with the noise and foot traffic.

I've never been such a good student before. Cla.s.s and homework being my only responsibilities, it isn't hard to keep up with them. In Miami, all I did all day was stare at my bedroom walls, think of you and hate myself. Here, in addition to doing those things, I read my notes and textbooks. I haven't declared a major and am thinking that just being perpetually in school sounds like a plan. There's nothing I actually want to do with my life anyways.

Thinking of you, sometimes I fantasize that we're attending college together. You're not an a.s.sa.s.sin and you never killed my father. In my fantasy, you had a normal childhood like me and we fell in love in the normal circ.u.mstances that teenagers do. We plan to marry after earning our degrees and travel the world before settling down into a house in the suburbs.

To be honest, any life with you would have been wonderful, a.s.sa.s.sin or not. If only my shot hadn't been fatal. If only I hadn't shot you at all. If only Jackson would kill me.

I'm an idiot, I know.

Yours Forever, Gabriel *****

Storming into the apartment, I slam the door behind me. Max is cuddling on the couch with some brunette chick, her name is Heidi or Hannah or something like that. Walking through the living room, Max stands up, looking wary. "Hey, how'd it go?"

The girl is looking at me like I'm a freak as I glower at my cousin. "Not now, Max."

Brushing past him, I stalk down the hallway and into my room. Tearing at my clothing, I undress and turn the shower on to the hottest temperature I can stand. Scrubbing myself with soap, I want to get rid of the dirty feeling on my skin. Reaching out of the shower, I grab my toothbrush and toothpaste from the countertop. Brushing hard, I can't get the bitter taste of self-loathing out of my mouth. Turning off the shower a few minutes later, I still feel disgusting. Disgusted. Without bothering to dress, I wrap a navy towel around waist and go to my computer desk. Opening the top drawer, I pull out my journal and begin to write . . .

April 13th Baby, My hand is shaking as I write this confession. I feel like I've betrayed you and our love all over again. Max finally talked me into going on a date with one of the girls he knows. I did it just to shut him up, but didn't expect to feel this way.

It started off fine, if a little awkward. I wasn't much of a conversationalist. The girl was beautiful, and before I met you, I would have been thrilled. It's almost creepy, but I feel as though Max purposefully picked a girl who superficially resembled you. At least how he remembers you.

Her eyes were brown, her hair a reddish dark brown. She was even your height at about five and a half feet. We went to the restaurant Max made reservations at and in the muted lighting I could almost imagine that she was you.

I started opening up and talked to her. Not about you, of course, because that's too personal, too special. Just about trivial things like school, the businesses my dad left to me and so on. She was nice enough, a third year English major hoping to become a professor someday. Curious, I asked her about past relationships. Like girls are always eager to do, she complained about problems with ex-boyfriends. Had our problems been so trivial, things would be so different now.

When we got to her place, she invited me up and I'm ashamed to say, I went. I knew what was going to happen before I even agreed. In her dark room, kissing her, with it leading to an obvious conclusion, I was pretending it was you. I was desperate and she was willing.

I came close to f.u.c.king her while lost in the fantasy of you. If I hadn't moaned your name, jerking myself out of the delusion, I'm ashamed to think what would have happened. Before she could even kick me out of there, I was running out of her apartment.

Disgusted with myself, hating myself, I write this confession to you.

Can you forgive me for this along with everything else? Do you even care?

Please answer me.

I'm dying without you, Annabelle.

Forever Yours, Gabriel *****

June 3rd, Dear Anna, It'll be the two year anniversary of your death later this month. Jackson's not coming, that's obvious now. What do I do now? Keep on pretending to live life? If I were to end it myself, what if I really did go to h.e.l.l for committing suicide? And what if you weren't waiting for me there? I just don't know.

In h.e.l.l with you would be preferable to this h.e.l.l on earth.

For killing you, maybe I'd be going to h.e.l.l anyways and committing suicide is just compounding my sins. Where are you? Heaven or h.e.l.l? If you're in heaven, do I still have a shot at making it through those gates? Or would they just spit me back out?

I write in this journal at least once a week, pretending that you can hear me. It's almost filled up. What will I do when I run out of blank pages? Go out and buy another, still pretending that you hear me?

Should I pretend to live a real life? Date and find a girl to settle down with. Get a job or run the businesses? My experience with that girl a couple months ago tells me that it would be unfair to be with another woman like that. I won't be able to ever love anyone but you. Is affection enough? Am I even capable of that?

When I think about being with someone else intimately, I think of how much it would hurt you. Sometimes people say that their deceased loved one would want them to move on and find happiness with someone else. Is that true, or is it an excuse to betray the memory of the person who loved you?

All those months we spent apart after you killed my dad, I wouldn't admit it to myself at the time, but now I know that in the back of my mind, I was worried that if I slept with someone else, it would be the end of us.

It feels like even now that holds true. Even in death, I can't tolerate the thought of us being over. To me, you're still here. When I close my eyes, I see you.

My existence is colorless when I'm not imagining you.

You haunt me, Annabelle.

Yours Forever, Gabriel *****

This trainer from Thailand is kicking my a.s.s. Figuring it was time to pick up some new fighting techniques, and not having anything else to do this summer, I'm adding Muay Thai to my martial arts regiment. Paying extra even gets me some one-on-one time sparring with the top instructor.

It's a hot July day in Manhattan and this gym is nicely air conditioned. If my instructor wasn't beating the s.h.i.t out of me, I'd want to stay here longer. In the other combat sports I study, ones I'm getting close to mastering, I'm the one kicking a.s.s when sparring with opponents.

I have a long ways to go before mastering Muay Thai, but I'll get there eventually. I attempt a roundhouse kick, which he deftly blocks with his shin and sends pain shooting through my foot. Seeing his jab coming, I barely mange to deflect it with my left hand.

Ten minutes later, panting, I strip off my gloves and protective gear. Anxious to get back home and in the shower, I pull a t-shirt out of my duffel bag and slip it on along with socks and tennis shoes.

Arriving at my building a short time later, I take the elevator up to the top floor. Calling out Max's name, there's no answer. He must be out. The place is nice, not that we've done much decorating. My room is the only one I put actual thought into. A queen bed sits against the corner with lots of pillows and dark curtains block out the light from the outside world. A giant TV, sofa, recliner, computer desk and chair provide everything I need to hole up in here for hours at a time. Unlike Max, I tend to keep my room clean, with all my clothes stashed into the dresser and closet.

While showering, I think about my journal entry this morning. I filled the last page left in the notebook. The urge to buy a new journal to fill, to keep writing to my dead girlfriend, is strong. Max bought the thing for me two years ago with the intent of helping me mentally and emotionally. At this point, I suspect it's making me more insane than I already am.

I know I'm not letting go of her, but nothing can convince me that I should. No way in h.e.l.l do I deserve closure of any kind. In a way, my undying love is a sort of penance. It's definitely more intense than reciting any number of Hail Marys or Our Fathers could ever be. Thinking about confessing my sins to a priest is always a form of dark amus.e.m.e.nt for me. I would say something like . . .

Bless me father, for I have sinned. It has been a h.e.l.l of a long time since my last confession. No pun intended, father. These are my sins . . .

Three years ago, when I was only seventeen years old, I met a girl. The girl. Love at first sight, you could say. Anyways, I brought that girl into my family's home, not knowing that she was an undercover a.s.sa.s.sin, giving her the opportunity to murder my dad. But my sins didn't end there, father, because I then swore revenge. My journey for vengeance led me to abandoning my mom while she was having a hard time getting over my dad's death. Then, instead of attaining vengeance, I joined the girl on several a.s.signments that involved killing people for money. Even killed someone myself on one of them. After my mom committed suicide, I lost my mind and shot the girl. Father, is it a sin to still love her despite everything? To be totally obsessed with the woman I killed and wish that the devil was buying souls so I could sell mine to him and have her back?

That's the part where I imagine the priest having a heart attack and me being excommunicated from the Catholic Church. The imagined scenario is always good for a laugh. No, I won't buy another journal, I'll do something else. Don't know what yet, but I'm sure it'll come to me.

Chapter 36.

Gabriel August 20th Could Max be any more obvious? This girl is everything that Anna wasn't. Blonde, spray tanned an unnatural color, bubbly in a fake way. No secrets with this one, because any thought that enters her head exits through her mouth about point-two seconds later. Her skintight, turquoise dress barely covers her tiny a.s.s. Bending her over in it, a guy wouldn't even have to pull up the hem to get access.

As I listen to my blind date chatter on about the actress she copies her hairstyle from, I try to avoid ramming into the car in front of us on the way to the restaurant. Being rushed to the hospital sounds like a valid excuse for ending a date early. Sorry, but I'm bleeding from the forehead, gotta go. Don't call me, I'll call you.

I can hear Max's voice in my head, Gabe, you have to let Anna go, she's gone. She would have wanted you to be happy. Somehow I can't see myself finding happiness with this chick. Or with any of the other girls that he's set me up with.

Would Anna really have wanted me to be happy? I'm not so sure about that. Besides, she was my only chance at true happiness. Now I just go through the motions of life. I'm alive, but not really living, simply existing.

Loved you, I can still hear her voice and those final words in my head.

Still love you too, baby. Always.

Weaving my way through the Manhattan traffic, I finally pull up in front of the restaurant valet. Speed walking here would have been faster, but Max said it would be rude of me to make my date walk in heels. Handing him the keys of my Ferrari, I go around the car to join my date on the sidewalk. Well, at least the food should be good, this restaurant is supposed to be one of the hottest new spots in Manhattan for the younger crowd.

My date, Brenda, grabs my hand as we walk in and I have to resist the urge to pull away and wipe my hand on my dress pants. I'm still uncomfortable at the thought of dating again. This is the fourth girl Max has set me up with and I'm starting to think that my cousin has no idea of who I am now. This was the kind of girl that I went for before I met Annabelle. After being with someone like her, any other girl just pales in comparison. No matter how dark her tan is.

There's no excitement, no pa.s.sion. No Annabelle.

It's been more than two years since I murdered my first and only love and I'm not so sure I deserve a second chance at love even if I wanted it. For the first year after Anna died, I did absolutely nothing. Sat in my parent's big house mourning her, waiting for Jackson to come for me. When he never did, I was at a loss. What now?

Since letting Max talk me into moving to New York a year ago, I've sometimes regretted it. At least at my parents' house in Miami, I was left alone. Here, I have Max constantly on my back to do this or do that. To be more social. To quit scowling at girls when they try to introduce themselves. To go out with him to clubs and parties.

During the last school year, when I wasn't in cla.s.s or at the gym, I spent most of my days watching television in the penthouse we share. Not good enough for Max. I must date too, join the real world. A few years ago, I would have never thought that Max would be the player and I'd be the lovesick one.

After the date with the Anna look-alike in April, I finally broke down when I was wasted one night and told Max everything that happened with Anna. He eventually got over the shock of it and insisted I start therapy. I've still left out the major details to my therapist. Like the part about all the murders. All she knows is that my father was murdered, my girlfriend died and my mom committed suicide. She thinks I'm the victim of horrible, uncontrollable circ.u.mstances. I don't tell her that I'm one of the villains in my sob story.

I no longer keep a journal. That was a hard habit to break. The one I filled over a two year period is hidden in my room, though I should probably burn it. Incriminating evidence and all. Instead of talking to Anna in a journal, I talk to the shrink. I'm thinking that keeping a journal was the better deal. Definitely less expensive.

Two years ago, after killing Anna, I never saw a future for myself, never saw myself here. I'm twenty years old and about to start my soph.o.m.ore year of college. Definitely never saw myself on a blind date. G.o.d, I used to think Max had excellent taste in women. Her teeth are whitened so much that they're blinding against her overly tanned skin.

The hostess seats us in a round, black leather booth in the middle of the restaurant and hands us long, narrow menus. After browsing through it for a couple minutes, I realize that Brenda has stopped speaking. Obviously out-of-character for her, so I look up to see her not even paying attention to me and staring over my shoulder, looking sort of . . . aroused. Is she checking someone out? I almost laugh out loud.

Amused and a little disturbed, I turn around in my chair to see who's caught her attention. I mean, he must be pretty special to turn her head away from me. Maybe I'm not the Don Juan I once was, but in the looks department, I've only improved with age and exercise. I twist slightly on the seat and look over the back of the booth to lock eyes with the last person I expected to see here. Jackson.

Jackson's brown eyes lock on mine then flick past me, filling with worry. An indecipherable look comes over his face and a feeling of premonition rushes through me. I whip my head around to see a shadowy feminine figure walking down the dim restroom hallway at the back of the restaurant.

Holding my breath, I wait the few seconds for her to enter the better lit dining room area. When she does, the breath whooshes out of my body and I wonder if she's a hallucination. As she nears, I don't have to pinch myself to know that I'm not dreaming. But hallucination is still an option. She doesn't see me yet, but I sure as h.e.l.l see her. Hair now light brown and upswept, wearing a fitted white suit that accentuates her small waist and killer curves, she's walking confidently in black and white heels, looking nothing like the twenty-year-old that she is. Annabelle. Long lost, not so dead after all, love of my life.

My hands start shaking where they're tightly gripping the menu. My entire body is shaking actually. I close my eyes in a long blink, wondering again if I'm hallucinating. It wouldn't be the first time. Maybe seeing Jackson is making me fantasize about seeing her. This is too good to be true. Maybe Jackson isn't real either. Maybe I've really gone crazy and am living in a fantasy world of my own making. The pain of living without Annabelle is intense enough for me to have a mental breakdown.

I close my eyes in another long blink. Please still be there. Opening my eyes, she still is. If I'm dreaming, I don't want to ever wake up. This is bliss. Maybe Jackson was real and he killed me. Maybe I'm in heaven with Anna now. If I'm crazy, I don't want to ever be sane again. I can feel myself start to sweat and my breathing speeds up.

She nears my table, but still hasn't spotted me. As she pa.s.ses, she finally glances down and meets my stare. Her blue eyes go wide long enough for me to know that I was the last person she expected to see, then the look is gone and she continues walking past. I turn my head to follow her progress as she seats herself across from Jackson at a chrome and gla.s.s table, with her back to me.

He looks at me and says something to Anna. Their waiter shows and, as they're placing their order, I think, that's it?