Epilogue

Mar 27, 2008 - 01:58 AM PST

Re-create me, she told him, whispering. Her eyes glinted in the dim light, and her face was lit up with something he couldn’t quite name.

He ran a hand down her hair, down the long, dark waves, almost hesitantly, barely touching them. Then his knuckles were resting gently against her cheek. She breathed in deeply, and looked into his eyes, steadying herself.

You can, she said, encouragingly.

There is nothing, he thought sadly, like the hope and the helplessness of human beings: foolishness and pain. Predictable chaos, so, so predictable.

His hand fell away from her face. Didn’t she understand, it wasn’t worth the effort.

She looked away, hiding her eyes. Her soul, aflame just two seconds earlier, was reduced to a darkened, dimly glowing ember. The change terrified him, and not only.

A sudden constriction of the throat: nauseating guilt pressed hard on his stomach. He looked at her, flooded with remorse, struggling, searching for words. What to say? It had already been said, soundlessly, in the very worst of ways.

She looked up again,calm, cool, collected, startling his tense train of thoughts.
It wouldn't have worked anyway, she said. You wouldn't have found it easy.

Maybe it was the challenge she put into that sentence, maybe it was the way she stared at him so fearlessly and unashamed. Maybe it was the vulnerability he saw in her, despite her furtive efforts at being strong. Whatever it was, the words seemed to come out of his mouth by themselves.

There's nothing to re-create.