KARMA

27. A NEW BEGINNING

September

Seven Months Later

RYAN

I rise to my feet when the female warden brings her in. She is leaning on a cane, and there is a metal brace running up her left leg. What happened to her? An accident? A fight?

Her eyes meet mine. There is no trace of emotion on her face. She has lost a lot of weight. Her auburn hair has been cut very short, like a man's cut, shaven along the sides, and her face is pale, shrunken.

Susan is unrecognizable.

"Susan," I say, as she sits down across from me. I sit down as well. The guard hovers in the background. "How are you?"

Susan looks at me. Her face is impassive. "What are you doing here?"

I clear my throat.

"I came to say goodbye. I am leaving the UK."

I wait for her to ask me where I am bound, but instead, she smirks.

"Running away as usual. Coward," she says softly.

"I'm not running away. I want to put all this" --- I pause --- "all this behind me, make a fresh start --- "

"How lovely," she sneers. "I applaud your optimism, hampered as you are by your considerable --- impediment. But that's you, Ryan, the supremely deluded and magnificently self-absorbed egotist." She starts to laugh, her shoulders shaking. "Good luck. You'll need it." She chortles again, her eyes glinting with malicious satisfaction.

She doesn't deserve anything, I think, and am instantly overcome with contrition. She is what she is now because of me. I broke her and I destroyed her life. It's on me.

I am here today to tell her that I bear her no ill will. That I have forgiven her.

I am attempting to thread together the shattered pieces of my life, and making my peace with Susan is one of the tasks on my journey to redemption. It does not matter if she does not forgive me; what is crucial is that she needs to know that I have forgiven her.

After this visit, I will not cross paths with Susan again. It is better that way. Time, they say, is the greatest healer. It is my hope that one day, Susan can forgive me.

Today is the end of our tale --- Susan's and mine --- a deadly entanglement that began, and was driven by my lust and my ego, an aborted affair that went horribly wrong, and ultimately, a tragedy that has wrought so much damage, and wrecked so many innocent lives.

Susan raises her head, her eyes bright. Her smile deepens and her voice is silk and honey over my reopening wounds. "I'd ask that nice guard for some alone time, but it'd be a waste, since you and I know you are no longer a man, Ryan. You are a pathetic, sexless creature now. You are of no use to any woman now." She laughs again. "How does it feel, Ryan?" She leans forward, her eyes filled with venom. "Do you have phantom twinges down there? Do you dream of rutting in your sleep, and wake up to --- nothing?" She licks her lips, and runs her tongue over them. "It must be torture for you to know that you are a hollow man now, and that body of yours" --- she flicks her eyes contemptuously over me --- "is nothing but a husk. An empty shell."

I am unable, for the life of me, to form a reply. The words wither in my mouth; it is as if I have been struck. I feel myself shrinking in my seat, my head bowing to evade the triumphant sneer on Susan's face.

"Do you want to see what you have done to me, you piece of filth? Do you want to see what I have become, trapped in this prison, because of you, because of what you started? Well, look. Look, Ryan, and remember. I am what I am now, because of you."