Loving Lucifer [COMPLETE]

Chapter 43

I froze.

"Catherine..." he repeated.

I hesitated before turning around to face him.

"I see fear in your eyes; please don't be afraid. I won't hurt you." He lifted his hand as if to protest but I flinched. His eyes broke. "What have you been through, my beautiful Catherine?"

"Luke, you're delusional...you know what I have been through - you were there."

"I know I protest in futility, but I was not. I have already told you where I was. How easy is it for you to disregard my words as lies?"

"Luke, I was there. I saw your face. I looked into your eyes when you lifted the metal rod to hit me."

His hand flew up to his mouth and his eyes watered.

"Why are you so surprised? Even if you don't remember what you did, I've already explained what happened in front of everybody else."

"Not like this. Oh, my beautiful Catherine! I am so happy you survived."

I shook my head at him.

"I wouldn't have been hurt in the first place if it hadn't been for you."

"Sweetheart," he said, "I'm so sorry for what has come to pass, even if I myself cannot understand it."

He lifted his hand to caress my cheek, but I flinched at his touch and he retreated his fingers. They lingered in the air, as if they were caressing a ghost.

"I had to see you one last time," he said, "To tell you how much I truly love you. Because I love you, Catherine. I am drawn to you the way the moon is drawn to the Earth and the Earth to the sun; my lips long to kiss you like the waves long to kiss the shore each time they are pulled away...my fingers long to run up and down your arm like a summer breeze on blades of glass. Catherine, everywhere I go I am drowned in your smell and the lack of it; I am blinded by your eyes and your hair, separate, on different beings, on others not you...I am deafened by the cruel echo of the ghost of your laugh, I am left gaping in the taste of your kisses come back to me in some cruel dream, and I am shaken by the phantom of your fingers on my arms." He reached out to me once more, never reaching my face, his eyes glimmering with tears. "So I had to see you tonight. To tell you I love you. I always have."

"Are you leaving then?" I asked, biting my tongue from spilling out a reply to every beautiful thing he had said.

"Yes," he replied, "I am."

"When?" I asked, slapping myself internally for spitting it out.

"Soon..."

I nodded.

"You gave me a lifetime's worth of happiness and acceptance, Kate."

"I thought you would too," I replied, shrugging sadly, "I had such high hopes for us."

"Oh, me too, my dearest."

"Then why?"

"It is futile to answer. You wouldn't believe me, Catherine. I've tried."

"Why do you keep bruising me with your lies?" I asked, tears starting to spill down my face, "It is so much harder to cope when you won't even admit what you've done."

"I cannot admit something that has not come to pass, my dearest."

I shook my head at him.

"You're practically calling me crazy...delusional."

"I am not. But I know I wasn't there. I never went to Matthew's garage."

"I can see that," I said.

He shook his head desperately.

"Oh how I wish we were not parting on such terms..."

"Me too," I replied.

He took my hand in his, and although I flinched, he held on to it and pressed it to his lips, sending shivers up and down my spine.

"I must bid you farewell then, my sweet one," he said, pressing my hand once more before letting it go.

"Goodbye...Lucifer."

"Lucifer indeed," he replied, "Born under the light of the brightest star, extinguished to the darkness in the absence of its dust."

He smiled sadly and walked away. I stood still until he had rounded the corner, sighed, and turned to continue on my way. I walked slowly. The air was crisp and cool; I needed it to bite my cheeks - to keep me awake; to stop me from falling to the floor and curling up into a ball.

His words had infiltrated my brain, etching themselves into my memory, making me feel the same thirst, hunger and drought he had felt in the absence of my presence. Because I, too, had drowned, shivered, gone deaf and blind and left gaping at the hole he had carved out into my life turned existence.

The sorrow in his eyes had destroyed me; his face a shadow of the marvel it used to be. If Luke weren't immortal, I might have believed he was ill. But he couldn't be.

I could see us, lying down on his bed, as he spoke of his existence and his past. I could see his watering eyes and his trembling lips, sincerity pouring forth. Where had it all gone wrong? I still couldn't piece together at which moment everything had gone sour. His words came rushing back to me all at once. And one kept repeating itself senselessly over and over again.

Dust.

Dust...

Dust!

I turned on my heel and ran like there was no tomorrow. Each turn was familiar; I still knew the way like the back of my hand. I found myself out of the neighbourhood and in the city. The streets were populated now; people were going into bars and coming out of restaurants. Eyes followed me, the strange girl running in the middle of the city in a skirt and work shoes.

I caught up to him as he was rounding the corner to his apartment; the apartment where we had lain together for the first time - the apartment which held so many of our memories it could burst.

"Lucifer..."

He turned around to face me, his eyes broken but slightly brighter with a glimmer of hope I had not seen before.

"You can't kill yourself."