Chapter 96 #2
Although I didn’t want to take out the pent-up energy in my fists on a stranger, judging by his words, this man knew no boundaries and was most likely one of the paparazzi who had been staking out our front door for days and were already waiting for me outside the cemetery walls.
Atrianima had died.
Should I tell them that?
“Daniel Bellrose.” The man held out his hand to me. “Lead attorney in the Troy Fitzek case.”
I stared at his hand, and when I didn’t return the gesture, he lowered it and turned toward Quills resting place.
It dawned on me what he was doing here, and the mere thought triggered a new wave of exhaustion in me.
“We believe there’s more to this. And since you were close to Miss Veritas, we would like to call you as a witness.”
“No interest…”
“I doubt that.” The man continued to stare at the gravestone, his expression unreadable. “You’re one of the few lawyers who want justice.”
“Ex lawyer,” I corrected him. “And by now, at the very latest, I know that there’s no such thing as justice in this rotten world. Down there, six feet below us, lies the proof.”
If there was such a thing as a God, that God wasn’t mine. Ever since the day I had been born, he took pleasure in taking away the things that meant something to me. As if he enjoyed seeing me break. As if he wanted to show me that I wasn’t meant for this life.
The pain my body was fighting against somewhere inside me grew increasingly dull, and yet I felt it raging so fiercely within me that I was certain I would break down again as soon as I got home. If I even made it home…
Maybe I really should lie down beside her.
Let the snow cover me and carry me to her overnight.
“Mr. Rydell,” the stranger lawyer said matter-of-factly, staring at the white roses. “In ninety-seven days, a lawyer will knock on your door. You will open it for her and grant her entry.”
Everything about the man’s words set off my brittle alarm bells.
“Give me one reason why I should do that.”
“Because she will help you put the men responsible for the suffering in this town and in your life behind bars.”
Deep down, I knew that was exactly what I wanted. But I didn’t even want to admit to myself what state I was in right now, let alone what had been taken from me.
All I wanted was Quill.
I didn’t have the strength for anything else.
“I don’t want anything to do with this town anymore.”
Let them ruin me completely.
“Do it for her. Don’t you think she deserves it?”
Again I looked at the man who spoke as if he knew us, scrutinizing him.
“The police have withheld crime scene evidence that belongs to you.”
He pulled something out of his coat, held out his hand – now covered in a black glove – and handed me a plastic bag containing a piece of paper.
Hesitantly, I took it.
“We shall meet again.”
I doubted that…
The strange lawyer nodded at me, turned around, and opened a black umbrella before disappearing down the path.
As quickly as he had appeared, I forgot him just as fast, my gaze fixed only on the evidence in my hand. And even through the plastic I could see the reddish-brown color.
Quill’s handwriting.
Where a heart had once been in my chest, the veins throbbed longingly, in memory of her blood. Blood that was now in my hands. Her blood.
Frantically, I opened the bag, pulled out the folded sheet of paper with a reverent tremor in my chest, suddenly feeling wide awake and as if the inner emptiness were receding, chased away by emotions ready to finish me off on the spot.
What was in my hands were her words. Addressed to me. Written in blood.
She had written with her goddamn blood.
It was as if, with every second I stared at her scrawled lines, my nightmare was coming back.
Before my knees could actually give way, I managed – clutching the letter as if someone might snatch it from me at any moment – to make it to the nearest bench and let myself sink down.
And it took a while before I was able to read.
Her last words...
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
My Inkbird,
I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry that I left you.
Please know that this ending was the last thing I ever wanted for us. And yet it was more than I could ever have dreamed of.
All my life, my ink has flowed through this world, unwanted. Until it met your paper. You didn’t pull it away, you spread it out, allowing me to penetrate every fiber of your life. And for the first time, I didn’t feel unwanted, didn’t feel like I was too much.
You dipped your pen nib into me and transformed my pain into something beautiful.
All the blood I had ever shed suddenly hadn’t been in vain anymore. All the suffering and heartbreak had led me to this bridge.
That evening, I thought I would fall. And I did fall. Deep. Right into your arms.
You caught me, Davian.
When you reached out your hand to me and our fingers slipped into each other for the first time, I felt like I was finding something again that I hadn’t known I had ever lost. And I had no idea that this touch would become my home.
For years I had been searching for something that had been just a few feet away from me my whole life.
In recent months, I've often thought about what would have happened if we had met sooner. Whether we would have had a better chance, or one at all.
At some point, I realized that I don’t want to know. That everything I have found with you can only be the result of a split-second phenomenon. That a single second’s difference in our past could have prevented our entire story.
And you know what’s madness? That I would go through this whole journey, all this suffering, all over again, just to end up on that bridge once more. With you.
It’s bittersweet, but maybe that’s the price of finding something so precious. Fate must have realized that you’re too precious for me, that I’ve already tasted too much of you without being able to pay for it. That I would never be able to settle my debt if I kept you.
I had found peace in growing old. With you. I had enjoyed the summer with you so much that I had forgotten that a year has four seasons.
And I know that after rain comes sunshine. You were my sunshine, Davian. But we both know what comes after sunshine. And I couldn’t let that happen.
They would have taken you away from me…
And I couldn’t let that happen.
I was so afraid. Afraid of losing you and having to endure that feeling until the day my heart would finally give up. To die inside while still alive, without ever being allowed to live again.