"You never shared what happened. You just came back from that island like this. What happened there?" A lot. So much happened there that I don't know where to start. 
"I made friends. Friends I felt I had known for generations and ......" 
"And?" 
"And I met a girl. I fell in love. And like a stupid fucking idiot, I got my heart broken. Joëlle reminded me of a young me. She wanted love and attention and I thought I can give it to her. I thought I can love her enough for her to not look for it some place else but I was wrong. 
I was fucking stupid. She didn't need my love or care or attention. She didn't give a single fuck about it. All she cared about was her father's approval and it didn't matter what she had to do to get it."
Breaking my heart was the most harmless thing she did. When I look back I still can't believe I was deceived so easily. The Joëlle I loved and the Joëlle I killed were two different women. 
One was a broken girl who loved head massages and baking. She was the girl who told me I'm strong and I can face the world even if my father doesn't face me. 
The other was a girl who was willing to kill a man because he fell in love. She was the girl who was going to let a dozen middle aged men rape a girl because she wanted to live with her lover. She was the girl who betrayed not only her boyfriend but her best friend for her absent father's approval.
I know why she needed him in her life, I wanted my father's approval too but I wouldn't kill or let people get raped for it. If my father is that kind of a man, he needs to go before I off him myself.
"Is that why you're not willing to fall in love? Because you're scared?" Maybe. Maybe I am scared. Maybe I don't want that heart wrenching pain in my chest again. Maybe I don't want my limbs to ache when I wake up.
I'm not sure if every heartbreak is the same but mine was so strong it made me lifeless. I haven't forgotten lying in the middle of the road with a pint in my hand and tears in my eyes. 
A random man pulled me off or I would've been sludge under someone's car. And I wouldn't have hated it. I knew I was fucked up when I had nothing else to do, when dying didn't feel scary. 
I tried to find purpose but I found none. I murdered people. The people that were part of that cult that destroyed all our lives. I watched their blood drain from their bodies and splashed it on Joëlle's grave. 
That was my petty revenge. I buried her myself but I didn't want her to find peace. She left me with life long misery and I'm hoping I can give her an eternity of it back. I want her to know I didn't just kill her. I killed other people who helped her ruin two lives. 
Two lives of people who did nothing but love each other. They didn't harm anyone. They did nothing and yet they paid the price for hundreds of years. 
I want Joëlle to know I fucking loathe her so much I can't think of love anymore without her shadow tainting it like a bad omen. 
"I'm not scared Cassandra, I'm worried I can't love someone the same and I don't want to ruin a life by breaking their heart. Love doesn't scare me, it haunts me. It physically hurts me and the wound it gave me the first time around is still pulsing. I don't know how to heal it." 
The woman beside me nods. "I always thought it was because of your wife's condition. Everyone knows your marriage isn't normal and everyone believed it's because of...." 
"It's not. Inayat and I are two sides of the same coin. We are stuck together but we don't even see each other. I know there is something serious that happened but she doesn't share and I don't blame her because I didn't tell her any of my troubles either.