Page 54 of Unforgivable Sins
“Please, Sinn, tell me everything because I feel like I’m going crazy. You saved me that night but I don’t know how or why, and I don’t understand how you’re here now. And, I’m…,” I can’t bring myself to say it out loud. “I just…I don’t understand.” My voice cracks as the tears slide down my cheeks and I close my eyes, trying to gather my strength and bravery to face all the truths being thrown my way. “Please…”
Sinn moves, but not to get away from me. He sits up in the bed, his back against the headboard, and I realize, once again, he’s fully dressed, but this time so am I. The memories of last night flood through my head. I was so consumed by remembering my past that I barely registered Sinn laying me down in bed and climbing in behind me. After my mind was literally blown, I pretty much just passed out from the onslaught of emotions and now, here we are.
I join Sinn by sitting up in bed as well. I cross my legs, facing him, and pull a pillow into my lap, hanging onto it for dear life.
Sinn lets out a heavy sigh. “I’m not even sure where to begin.”
I sit quietly and patiently, waiting for him to find his voice and get his thoughts together. I don’t know where to start either so I’ll let Sinn narrate this story and shed more light on the truth, and just sit back and absorb it the best way I can. All I can hope for is that it doesn’t break me further.
“You remember what happened eleven days ago? How you got those scars?” He gestures to my wrists.
“Yes,” I swallow down my awful truth, “I took my own life.”
He nods. “Yes. Ever since you woke up in this world and walked into Sinful Delights, you’ve been dead. Unlike the majority of souls who get transported to either Heaven or Hell, you have some kind of unfinished business, something inside of you that didn’t allow you a direct route to the Afterlife. So, you ended up here, in Purgatory, also known as The Land of Never.”
“Purgatory,” I repeat the word in awe, still unbelieving that this is all real. “What happens here? Am I stuck here?”
“Let’s circle back to that,” Sinn says, and continues to explain everything that I don’t know. “Normally, I would have been there when you died, to guide you and help you find your way to…well, to your next destination because I’m the Angel of Death.”
I let out a whoosh of air as his truth punches me in the gut. “Holy…”
“But everything changed the night you called to me.”
“The night you saved me.”
“Yes. I’ve never been called by any soul still living. I only hear the cries of the dead or those close to death. You were neither and yet I heard you as clear as I hear you now sitting right in front of me. You begged for death with a fierceness that I’ve never felt so deeply. Your desperation, your pain,gutted me, Wendee. I’ve never felt so close to another soul than I have to yours.”
I don’t know what to say. I remember that night clearly now, and I don’t recall begging for death but, apparently, I did. Because death’s Angel came for me.
“When I saw what was happening,” his jaw clenches and his eyes flash with anger, “I’ve never felt the cutting blades of death so fiercely.” He closes his eyes and takes a couple of deep breaths. When he opens his eyes again, they’ve returned to their clear, cold blue. “Then I locked eyes with you and I saw everything that I’ve ever felt reflected back at me. It was like looking into a mirror. I saw a life of loneliness and heartache. A life of hardships and trauma. I saw you, Wendee, and in you, I saw me.”
“Your scars,” I say, softly. “You’ve suffered at the hands of someone who claims they love you, too.”
A curt nod is all I get from him but it’s all I need. I don’t need him to cut open his chest and hand me his heart. Not yet. I have a feeling he’s never talked about any of this with anyone else before and this is its own type of intimacy. I keep my mouth closed, waiting for him to continue and give me what he wants to give me. I know it will all come in time.
“Well, you obviously weren’t dead, so I did the next logical thing I could. I took you to the hospital.”
A small smile pulls at my lips at the thought of the Angel of Death taking me to the hospital. “I knew you were real. I knew it was you who took me to the hospital. How come no one saw you?”
“I’m an angel, Wendee, I can go unseen whenever I want to.”
“Alright, Mr. All-Powerful, don’t get all cocky on me now,” I tease.
There’s a slight twitch of his lips but he gets right back on task without skipping a beat. In fact, his face gets even more solemn, if that’s possible.
“After that night, I was connected to you. I knew your soul, what it felt like, what it sounded like, and I heard you calling out to me every…damn…day. I heard the cry of your soul so intensely, it felt like it rattled my bones. Your agony gripped my heart and never once eased up on it’s hold. For fifty years I’ve had to feel your sadness and your pain and have been utterly helpless to do anything about it.”
“Wait…fifty years? What do you mean, fifty years? It’s only been one year since that night.”
He shakes his head. “Time moves differently here. Your one year has been fifty for me.”
My mouth drops open in shock. Fifty years! He’s been feeling everything I’ve felt for fifty years?! Fucking hell! No wonder why he’s angry and as cold as ice. I would be, too.
“Sinn…,” I grasp for words, trying to comprehend what he’s telling me. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you could feel me…I didn’t mean to hurt you. I…” I don’t even know what to say.
“There’s nothing for you to apologize for, Wendee. It’s no one’s fault but my own.”
“What do you mean?”