Binary Star

Beyond the Event Horizon [2/2]

    Everything was going alright, until suddenly I was distracted by her sharp, sudden scream. I recognized her voice. Of course I recognized her voice. I would recognize that voice even a million years from now. I would recognize that voice even over distorted, over-modulated radio transmissions. I would recognize that voice if it came to me in a dream. I would recognize that voice anywhere. It's her voice, and try as I have, I cannot forget her.

    I turn around, slightly ashamed that she has seen me like this, and a million times guilty about everything. Then, I lift my eyes to face hers, and she looks at me with that dark chocolate, coffee-brown gaze of hers, tears streaming down her face, and neither of us speaks a single word for the longest time. During this time, I gaze at her as ever I have gazed at her, and I mourn. It feels appropriate, too, for we are in a cemetery. It is a place of loss, of remembering and forgetting. It is the perfect place for this. She gazes at me back, collecting her bravery, deciding whether to throw venom at me or sugar-coated lies. I hope it's neither. I much rather prefer the dry taste of truth.

And reader, I miss her. I miss her desperately like you would miss air to breathe if you were trapped underwater for too long. I miss those eyes of hers, and I miss her voice. I miss her. Sometimes, I fancy myself back in that place we used to live, even despite the stupid rules we had to follow. Sometimes I pretend we're back there, and we're teenagers again- myself being 17 and her being 16, and I pretend that she's just Lucía, the coffee girl, again. And oh, yes, she's still my coffee girl because everything about her is coffee. Her hair is long, and curly, and dark brown, like a shot of espresso with nothing added to it. Her eyes, as I mentioned, are a richer, more chocolatey shade. And her skin... sure, her skin I could compare to something else, but I choose to compare it to coffee anyway, because it's like that color of coffee froth when it's brewing. She has beautiful, sun-kissed dark skin, and it stands in stark contrast with my own powdered sugar whiteness, but we don't care. That is the least that matters. I love her not for her skin or her eyes, or her hair (though I do love all of those things, simply for being hers). I love her for who she is. She is my coffee girl, and it has nothing to do with what she looks like. She, like coffee, gives me energy to go on. She brightens my day, and with her I am not afraid to do anything, not even the crazy things I sometimes come up with. She'd humor me, back then, and help me out. We broke out of that place once, thanks to that. But we returned.

No matter what, you always return to where you're from, even if it hurts, even if you don't want to. And reader, it hurts. It hurts so much that I feel like I might die. I didn't want to come back here. I don't deserve the flowers over my grave, nor her gaze upon me. I should have just left, exiled myself to a cave, withered away and died. I'm good at that, at least. I'm good at disappearing.

After a good long while of simply staring at each other in reconnaissance, she finally opened her mouth to speak. "What have you done? Why?" This was all she had ventured to ask.

I was silent for a moment longer, thinking. Then, I dropped the blade I had been holding, and shook my head. She must have known, because she knew me so well, that I was breaking apart on the inside. I was shattering into a million pieces, like glass. That's the one other thing I am good at: being broken. My kind of broken has never been, and will never be, fixed or fixable. I'm okay with that, and she was okay with it too... until now. Now, it means I am no longer the person she once knew. I'm no longer hers. I'm no longer her sweet, young, beautiful mess of a boy. Now, I'm just the mess and all the ugly that it causes. After my silence, I spoke: "I already told you... I have to. I have to do this. I have no choice. If I don't, someone else will, someone evil, someone who doesn't care if they suffer, someone who only wants them to suffer. If I do it... If I do it, they can go in peace. I can give them kindness. I can stop the pain."

Tears  began to well up in my eyes until they overflowed and dripped down my cheeks. These tears, though, were not of water, but of blood. I cried blood because I felt the way in which my words hurt her, and I felt how deeply they cut through her, carving her soul out in pieces, destroying her. I knew this was wrong, but I couldn't help but to think that somehow, somehow it was right, and I was right, and I really, truly had no choice. Was I revenge-thirsty? Maybe. But it was not the children that I was angry at. No, their suffering I really did mean to end. I was angry at their abusers. I was angry at the people who knew that they were hurting someone and didn't care because they enjoyed watching the pain unfold in front of them. I was so damn angry that it made me physically sick.

    It's just that... she doesn't know. She doesn't know what I'm really doing this for, and if she knew? She would never want to see me again. I cannot tell her. I can only hope to send her away with enough of a threat to make sure she won't return. But due to my kindness, I am not allowed to hurt her as much as it would hurt for her to hear the truth: despite the fact that I am killing the children to ease their pain, I am also doing it to get God's attention. That is what I realized I was after, all along. I need to get God's own attention, to show him that this is all unfair, that he had no right to let me or anyone else suffer as we have. He needs to know that I will fight. I will fight Him, so be it the last thing I do.

    Lucía doesn't know this. I cannot tell her this. To my words from before, she simply answered: "No, you do not. You're by far better than this, and you know it. You're hurting them too. Don't do what you vowed to never let yourself do. Don't become that monster you ran away from so long ago."

    She would never have understood. She could never understand. With blood-red tears still streaming down my face, I picked up the blade slowly, giving her one chance and one chance only to run. She didn't take it, as if though she understood what I was about to do. She stayed put, daring me to do it... so I did. In a swift movement, I plunged the blade deep into her chest and held her close to me, so close that it almost could have been as if it wasn't me that had betrayed her like this. I wrapped an arm around her, and lifted the same hand that had held the blade up to her face, caressing it softly, brushing away her hair. Then, I gave her one last kiss, the most loving, the most careful I had ever given her and ever would. I held her close until I could feel the life wither away from her, and as she took her last breath, I whispered: "I'm sorry."