The Death of Us

by C.A. Mariah

The tabloids were right to call her The Beauty. Hair as light as sun-kissed leaves falls to her ribs in delicate waves. Though worn with age and scarred by life, her skin still glows with fiery youth.

“I don’t want you to tell the world we weren’t monsters. We were.” “Then what do you want?” Leaning close enough for me to catch the faint whiff of blood and mint on her breath, Bunny looks me dead in the eye, keeping me prisoner just as much as her. “I want you to tell them why.”

“What’s your name?” he asks, drowning me in the soft blues of his gaze. I wanted to keep that close. I wanted to deny him everything, but in this moment⁠— “Bunny.” I know he’ll keep it safe.

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.”

“Fuck me, Bunny. Show me what makes you so fucking special to the devil.”

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.

Guilt weighs heavily on my heart because I wanted to meet a monster. Instead, I got a girl.

“On my life.” It’s a promise he meant literally, I learned eventually. A promise he truly kept…until the end.

“Take this as a lesson, baby girl. Never chase a man. You’ll suffer for it every time.”

“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.

“I got you.” “Until the end.”

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

I’m done now. I can rest now. I just need you to be honest… Tell the truth. Tell the world we were monsters but that we were kids, too. Raped, beaten, and brutalized kids. Tell them what they did to us. Tell them how they got away with it. Tell them the truth about us, and don’t let them slander Cade’s name…not anymore.”

I love you, Bun. I don’t know when I’ll find the nerve to say it, but I do. I love you, Bunny. Until the end.