Chapter 26 #2
I settled on the far side of the bed atop the covers, extending my hands. She stained her pillow with mascara, voice muffled as she said, “What if you’re real?”
What if?
Thousands of years ago, I’d met Shala on the edge of the Dead Sea and experienced something that felt like empathy. So curious. Interesting. New.
Each emotion, each life, each cycle, she taught me more about myself than I ever could for her. Love was uniquely herself in each life, no matter who, or where, or what.
I hadn’t thought I’d ever experience a newness that I’d hate.
“I certainly might be,” I said softly. “Would that be okay?”
Another hiccup. A choked sob. “No.”
I squeezed her hands, more for myself than for her. “Why not?”
She released my hands, rolling onto her back, staring at the basement apartment ceiling and the cheap, blue-green glow-in-the-dark stars left by the previous tenant.
She stared up at the fake constellations and said, “You were my fox, and I got the shit beat out of me for it. You were my angel, and I had a fucking exorcism. I left the church. I take my meds. I go to therapy. And…”
She shoved the heels of her hands into her eyes.
I watched as each moment was a new nightmare. Every drop of her pain was something I’d never experienced before. Something I wasn’t sure I could withstand.
“And?” I dared.
It was my duty to remain calm.
Only one of us could break, and these emotions weren’t hers to carry.
“If you’re real…then denying you? Praying you away? The life I’ve spent trying to medicate, to ignore, to push down, to pretend…you have to be fake, Caliban. You have to be my imagination. If you’re real…”
She rolled back toward me, extending a hand toward where my face would be in the apartment’s inky blackness.
Another hiccup.
“You can’t be real,” she insisted. “I couldn’t live with myself if you were, knowing what I’d done to you. Another failure in a lifetime of failures. My biggest, cruelest—”
“Love.” I cut her off gently, brushing a piece of hair from her cheek that had been plastered by tears. “If I’m fake, then enjoy me. Savor the imagination. Let yourself have fun.”
A hiccup. Her eyes squeezed shut. “And if you’re real?”
I had to swallow the shimmering tears that glazed my laugh.
If I’m real? I would save you from the Dead Sea.
I would stay with you when you asked me not to go.
I would marry you to a Greek general then banish your husband to years of campaigns and conceal his death so we could be together.
I would follow you on the ice, spend decades as a wolf, a spirit guide, a friend, supporting more than a hundred years of your guidance as you lead your tribe.
I would find you married with a child in the Emerald Isles and wait for you every year just so you might offer me a cup of mead on your birthday.
I’d suffer the unbearable torture of feigned indifference for centuries, over one sliver of hope that you would find peace at my absence if I could just learn to control myself and leave you alone.
I’d call a conclave of every god known to man and even those beyond mortal comprehension, swearing them to your protection, threatening their immortality if they harm a hair on your head.
I’d lay bare my willingness to shred my reputation with my kingdom, choosing my human over my people, whether they stood with me or not.
I’d fight angels, becoming a tiger and mauling Heaven’s conquering army for the chance to see you through a window.
I’d become a turtle, a bird, a shark, then spend a mortal life on an island roleplaying humanity, just for the chance to see what it might be like had we ever been husband and wife.
I’d grovel before a closed pantheon, pathetic, shameless, begging for a glimpse of you.
I’d climb a fjord, dance among the embers, and fuck you like a demon until you were satiated enough to last the thousands of lifetimes we wouldn’t touch.
I’d be there with you through the rise and fall of empires, through colonization, through misery, through choice, through autonomy, through death, in kingdoms and nations that no longer have names.
I’d murder a god and paint my legacy with his blood.
I’d find you on a windswept island among the icebergs and chase you into a realm of nightmares.
I’d trap my only sibling in a purgatory of her own making.
Another hiccup.
“You’re quiet because you’re not real. And every time I beg my imagination to talk, I only seem crazier and crazier.
I should just go to bed. If you are real, I’m a worthless nightmare, Caliban.
I’ve ruined everything. I would never forgive myself.
I’ve ruined your life. I’ve hurt you in ways I can’t fathom.
Caliban, oh my god, if you are real? I’ve known shame.
I’ve known guilt. But the hate I would feel over what I’ve done, over what you must have felt, over what I’ve put you through—"
“Love?” The hot spike of emotion rose within me once again. She owned all my tears, both those that fell, and those that didn’t. Her eyes were not made for the dark, but I could see her just fine. I watched her still as she searched the blackness for a sign of something real.
“If I’m real?”
A final hiccup. “Yes?”
“And if you believe I love you?”
A small laugh this time. A long pause. A yawn. A sleepy, sheepish, “Yes?”
“Don’t worry about what you’re doing to me. Let me worry about that.”
Her hands slackened. Her eyes closed. Sleep began to settle over her. “If you’re real?”
The world around her dimmed. My shoulders softened, her glow consuming me as I regarded the complicated, fascinating, unpredictable, irreplaceable, perfect, beautiful embodiment of Love.
My hand settled over hers—the soul who owned every one of my tears as I gazed at her through the shimmering haze of my one, unconditional truth. I squeezed it lightly until her lashes fluttered open, eyes locked on mine.
“Then destroy me. I’m yours.”