I WAS GOD ONCE

OCTOBER 12, 4:27 AM, TWO HOURS REMAINING

      "What'll it be for you gentlemen this morning?" The cushions of the booth they'd slid into were torn from the sun which beat down when it filtered through the dirty window beside them in the daytime. The inside of Blake Pines Breakfast was sort of ugly and disorganized. Edward saw tinsel still along some of the counters from Christmas of last year. Halloween cut outs were pressed onto the windows, a skeleton here, a hissing black cat there. The neon OPEN sign was just above their window, and it shone brightly, annoying, the N blinking out of sync. Edward's head pounded behind his eyes. He imagined both he and Adam looked the type of drug addicts, or shady conspirators who frequented cafes in the early hours of the morning. The waitress looked between him, then Adam. Her auburn hair was tied into a messy bun.

      "Uh," His voice couldn't quite make it past a certain octave. He felt like he was whispering, near inaudible. The waitress leaned an inch forward, her little book in her hand. "J-just, two coffees, I guess, please," The woman nodded and padded off, paying no interest in either of their strangeness.

       He thought, almost humorously, of his years spent working as a waiter, and all of the irritating things that people did in restaurants. He sucked in a deep breath, dragged his hands over his face.

       Across from him, Adam was staring at the table. He glanced up at him. Adam's eyes were dark, though not so bugged out as he knew his own must be. Jesus. What do those people think we did? They'd left the apartment only a short time ago, but Edward imagined the police had likely shown up by then. He'd heard the sirens not ten minutes ago. Do they think we killed Elle?

       "... Are we no longer going to your mother's?" Adam asked quietly. His hands were clasped tightly in his lap. Their brief time in the rain had soaked his shoulders and the top of his head so his white hair had taken on a slightly greyer look. White because of all the times that've passed? All those memories you say you don't remember? Is that what happened there?

      "I don't know," Edward shook his head, "I-I mean I, I do. We're going, I already told her we'd be there I just..." His hands were still over his face, his elbows on the table. He caught sight of Adam watching him worriedly between his fingers. Like some anxious puppy. "I need a moment. Just to. To sit. And. And think."

       The waitress returned with a coffee pot and two plain white mugs. She filled them up, left a little pile of creamers, and told them if they were ready to order, to flag her down. Edward only nodded. The rain had dampened the cast he'd been given, too, but some plastic covering around it kept him from worrying. Edward rubbed at it briefly before he gripped one of the mugs.

       "How are you feeling..?" Adam asked after she'd left. It felt strange, him asking Edward. Just a day ago wasn't he trying to make him comfortable in his own home, as if he were going to keep him there? Showing him how to play solitaire on the floor of his living room? Cutting his hair on his bathroom floor? Adam seemed so different to him now in a number of ways. A bubbly, smiling teenager juxtaposed against a quiet, frightened young man. Their eyes shone just the same. Jesus, what happened? What have I gotten into?

      "I-I feel like," He said, slowly, "I am splitting in half," The coffee mug was warm between his hands, which shook. They hadn't stopped shaking since he'd woken up in bed, Adam beside him, since the blood in Elle's bedroom. All he could imagine was himself lying still. Would he blow out his brains or find a pill bottle somewhere, too? He remembered hearing the thud of the woman's body falling from the Heartful's tenth floor, that awful echoing sound it had made, and then the screaming. He hadn't seen the body, but he had seen the streak of blood on the front of the glass entrance. Like something out of a horror movie. He hadn't quite believed that that had been her blood. Seeing the gore on the bedspread had been- "I think-... I feel like I'm going crazy, and Elle was the only one, I think, I've known, who might have gotten it, understood what I was saying. And she's dead now. And I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do, or what's going to happen to me..."