The Death of Us

by C.A. Mariah

Blade, as violent as he was out in the ring, doesn’t fill me with the same terror as the men before. Call me a fucking idiot, but I want to know the man covered in scars.

I feel his touch in the deepest part of me, as if I’ve felt him in another life.

“Fuck, and you know, maybe we were. Maybe we lost our senses. Maybe we were just two kids desperate for something other than darkness…but we found it. In that moment, we found a light that had been stripped from our lives.”

It’s as if that simple phrase filled his chest with life, as if my desire for him stirred a beat in an empty soul. So

We beat our bodies, punish each other for the horrors we’ve faced. We fuck out our guilt, hate, and shame.

The more the story unfolds, the less I see the monsters that graced the covers of the New York Times. The longer I sit here, gazing into the eyes of a killer, the more I see a child who went through hell.

“How could we be so fucking stupid? How could we put ourselves in those situations?” Because what else did they have? You were an orphan. You were abused. You could only dream of dreams. The question shouldn’t be, how could they be so stupid? How could they put themselves in such dangerous situations? The question should be, how could you blame yourself for wanting to get out? How could you call yourself stupid for wanting more? More than the suffering. More than the torture.

“You’ve given me everything.” It’s as close to I love you as I’ve ever gotten to saying, and the biggest thank you I can squeeze out through my strangled throat, and it's not enough. There are no words or actions that could even come close to repaying what he’s done for me—what we’ve done together, for each other.

We will never go through this world alone, we solemnly swear, falling into each other's arms as swiftly as we fall deeper in love.

Lips against mine, he vows, “I got you.” “Until the end.”

“I love you, Cade.” Until the end, I can still hear him say. Until the end.

“We’re both broken, Susie. I don’t think you could come out of where we did without pieces missing.” “And do you think you can find those pieces doing what you’re doing?”