he was a victim of the of the part that loved, the part that was mortal
For some of us, there is only one other.
Certainly, all loves are different. They belong to different times, different places. They belong, even, to different shades of ourselves. The love of youth is not the love of old age.
I don’t think it happens often; truly, most ought experience love more than once, ought to understand it at different stages with different people. We are meant to love many times, as we go through the seasons of life. Those who love once are not true romantics; I would go so far as to say they are not romantics at all.
No. There is something warped in them.
In me.
My eyes lock with hers; I am tensely aware that neither of us are fully in that moment, that beneath the surface our memories play out like running water.
I never even told her.
Rain hits the windows in loud shudders. The cabin seems to groan with the storm when it hits; when the rafters shake; when sky becomes sea.
I never even told her, I love her.
It is because I had never loved her. And that is where I will never recover; the lie, insidious and unforgivable, that was woven into everything we had ever shared. That magic, irreparable lie; the one that hid her from me, that ensured I could never love her as she was, even had I wanted to.
The lie turned my other, the piece that fulfilled me, into fantasy.
He had never existed as I had thought. No matter the time spent together, no matter the memories made, or the blood shed—he never belonged to me. He belonged to the truth, and my love could not weather the confession when it came.
I cannot believe I've carried this burden so far; that it followed me to the shores of Novus and beyond. The memories lay thick on my shoulders in Elena’s cabin with Damascus breathing heavily outside, a storm hitting overhead.
I wonder what she feels; if my emotions are a pit opened up underfoot, or a black hole, or a fire.
What will you become when the war is over? he had asked me, once.
Yours, I had whispered, almost flippantly. The war would never be over.
Yours.
Yours.
I promise.
Her expression seems vaguely frantic; her brows pinch and soften, and beneath her eyes a storm of emotions rage. I wish I could feel more clearly the thread binding us; I wish I could feel her as she can feel me, to reciprocate the burden. Instead, I am a flood of regret, anger, rage, sadness into her. But in the aftermath of such a cleansing there is...
For some, there is a second love. A third. A fourth.
(But how could there be? Not for me. Not for me)
There will be others to want, to lust after; but the threads of my life were too closely woven into the threads of his.
Then she bares down, her head against my chest, no spaces are left.
When Elena tears it from me, there is a moment of agony—the moment of thinking, no, that is a piece of me—you cannot take it!
It is essential, you see.
It is the center of all I am.
The center that drives me; the fuel I burn; the dreams and the nightmares and the fantasies I consist of. How often are these things rooted in love, in desire?
Then, there is nothing.
I exhale one long, deep breath; I glance at her without pain, without the hedging at the end of my consciousness that there must be something else. There is no loneliness. There is no contempt. My head swims with it; my chest is light. It is as if every thought, ever action had been waterlogged by the undercurrent of him—and it becomes clear to me, in the way things become only clear with distance, that my love had become contempt and fantasy and hatred and fear and guilt and want and joy.
I am marveling. I am marveling at the physical strain her body displays; the way when she asks, Torix, how does it… What do you—desire now—? the tension makes it difficult to understand her words.
Then, I realize, she is difficult to understand because I do not have a ready answer.
There is nothing in my life Bondike did not touch. Not my memories of my family, not my memories of war, not my memories of my country, not my memories of the sea. The only thing left is Novus; the only thing left are the blue eyes in front of me, and—
“Nothing,” I say, for the first time in my life. I am quiet and tired and, perhaps, a little sad. “Nothing at all.”
The answer, the sentiment, seems anticlimactic; but I cannot remember the last time those words had been true. For so long, there had been war to want; medals to win; love to earn; I had wanted companionship; and I had covered my wants, my desires, in the bodies of others or in war or in hate. For a moment, ephemeral, I feel nothing but peace.
For some of us, there is only one other.
And when they are gone, there is so little left untouched by them.
I close my eyes and wonder, what else is there?
I close my eyes and wonder, am I ending, or did they?
But when I open them, I know. The comprehension is brief; there and nearly gone, before the feelings flood back, the love and hate and want and that fucking need. Yes. I need him and will never have him and that will not--cannot--go away.
And still, in that moment of clarity, I am assured: there must be something else, after.
The silence stretches until I say, so quietly my voice is barely audible: "Thank you."
Certainly, all loves are different. They belong to different times, different places. They belong, even, to different shades of ourselves. The love of youth is not the love of old age.
I don’t think it happens often; truly, most ought experience love more than once, ought to understand it at different stages with different people. We are meant to love many times, as we go through the seasons of life. Those who love once are not true romantics; I would go so far as to say they are not romantics at all.
No. There is something warped in them.
In me.
My eyes lock with hers; I am tensely aware that neither of us are fully in that moment, that beneath the surface our memories play out like running water.
I never even told her.
Rain hits the windows in loud shudders. The cabin seems to groan with the storm when it hits; when the rafters shake; when sky becomes sea.
I never even told her, I love her.
It is because I had never loved her. And that is where I will never recover; the lie, insidious and unforgivable, that was woven into everything we had ever shared. That magic, irreparable lie; the one that hid her from me, that ensured I could never love her as she was, even had I wanted to.
The lie turned my other, the piece that fulfilled me, into fantasy.
He had never existed as I had thought. No matter the time spent together, no matter the memories made, or the blood shed—he never belonged to me. He belonged to the truth, and my love could not weather the confession when it came.
I cannot believe I've carried this burden so far; that it followed me to the shores of Novus and beyond. The memories lay thick on my shoulders in Elena’s cabin with Damascus breathing heavily outside, a storm hitting overhead.
I wonder what she feels; if my emotions are a pit opened up underfoot, or a black hole, or a fire.
What will you become when the war is over? he had asked me, once.
Yours, I had whispered, almost flippantly. The war would never be over.
Yours.
Yours.
I promise.
Her expression seems vaguely frantic; her brows pinch and soften, and beneath her eyes a storm of emotions rage. I wish I could feel more clearly the thread binding us; I wish I could feel her as she can feel me, to reciprocate the burden. Instead, I am a flood of regret, anger, rage, sadness into her. But in the aftermath of such a cleansing there is...
For some, there is a second love. A third. A fourth.
(But how could there be? Not for me. Not for me)
There will be others to want, to lust after; but the threads of my life were too closely woven into the threads of his.
Then she bares down, her head against my chest, no spaces are left.
When Elena tears it from me, there is a moment of agony—the moment of thinking, no, that is a piece of me—you cannot take it!
It is essential, you see.
It is the center of all I am.
The center that drives me; the fuel I burn; the dreams and the nightmares and the fantasies I consist of. How often are these things rooted in love, in desire?
Then, there is nothing.
I exhale one long, deep breath; I glance at her without pain, without the hedging at the end of my consciousness that there must be something else. There is no loneliness. There is no contempt. My head swims with it; my chest is light. It is as if every thought, ever action had been waterlogged by the undercurrent of him—and it becomes clear to me, in the way things become only clear with distance, that my love had become contempt and fantasy and hatred and fear and guilt and want and joy.
I am marveling. I am marveling at the physical strain her body displays; the way when she asks, Torix, how does it… What do you—desire now—? the tension makes it difficult to understand her words.
Then, I realize, she is difficult to understand because I do not have a ready answer.
There is nothing in my life Bondike did not touch. Not my memories of my family, not my memories of war, not my memories of my country, not my memories of the sea. The only thing left is Novus; the only thing left are the blue eyes in front of me, and—
“Nothing,” I say, for the first time in my life. I am quiet and tired and, perhaps, a little sad. “Nothing at all.”
The answer, the sentiment, seems anticlimactic; but I cannot remember the last time those words had been true. For so long, there had been war to want; medals to win; love to earn; I had wanted companionship; and I had covered my wants, my desires, in the bodies of others or in war or in hate. For a moment, ephemeral, I feel nothing but peace.
For some of us, there is only one other.
And when they are gone, there is so little left untouched by them.
I close my eyes and wonder, what else is there?
I close my eyes and wonder, am I ending, or did they?
But when I open them, I know. The comprehension is brief; there and nearly gone, before the feelings flood back, the love and hate and want and that fucking need. Yes. I need him and will never have him and that will not--cannot--go away.
And still, in that moment of clarity, I am assured: there must be something else, after.
The silence stretches until I say, so quietly my voice is barely audible: "Thank you."
