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That she gave up the day I lost that battle and didn’t fucking cross the street. But even so, she’s been waiting for me this whole fucking time.
“We might have come together because our scars matched, and we recognized we were missing the same thing, but we fell in love because we became the thing we both needed for one another, and that’s a sense of security, of home.”
I came back that day to spend time with the woman who recognized and embraced my darkness, as I did hers, and shaped me into her soldier.
“Well, I got a three-for-one deal on the French pains in the ass in my life when I befriended Dom, didn’t I?”
“WHAT IS THE most real of what matters? . . . How about pain? Why pain? Try arguing it away . . . so if pain is the most fundamental reality, is there anything more fundamental than pain? . . . Love. Really. So, if you’re in pain . . . love and truth, that’s what you got. And you know . . . if they’re more powerful than pain, maybe they’re the most real things.” —Jordan Peterson
“It was you who was worth waiting for, Tyler,” I whisper as he stares back at me. “Je t’aime, Soldier, creator of my newborn heart. Mon seul véritable amour.” My one true love.
This is the best night of my life, Tyler,” she declares, as she so often does, and I reply like I always do. “No, it’s not. I promise you, it’s not.”
“In thinking that if you distance yourself enough, you’ll never feel like this again. But it’s not going to work. Not for you. Your heart won’t have it. You can’t cut off your hand and think you’ll still have the use of your fingers because you’re all heart, Sean.”
It’s then I realize that though our time is limited, what happiness we created and the memories we made can’t be taken or stolen unless we allow it. As much of a mental fuck as it might be, it’s not only possible to keep what we have but to make more peace, more of those memories in abundance, during what seasons remain.
“I have to fucking survive losing you. I have to live through it, and if I ever do pray to the God you believe in, it’ll be that it won’t be long-term.”
But know this—my future is being stolen right along with yours the minute you leave me.”
“All of that, that chaos, the beautiful mixed with the tragic, to the depraved, is a deity’s view, Tyler. It’s a god’s view, not meant for us. We are not built for such exposure to things like this, capable of processing so many extremes in such a short time. It’s already causing so much harm to young minds, who are now harming themselves. While it is disguised as a good tool, I feel it’s evil and know it will do great harm.”
“Ne me pleure pas. Promis moi. Do not mourn me so long it hurts you, Tyler. Steal your life back the first chance you get. Win again. And when you find her, or when she finds you, let yourself love her as you loved me. Live as both man and my soldier. Win again.”
Done searching the faces of any girl for what I had already found with you. Done searching for someone to share my thoughts with, my pain with. My heart had already decided, and though my mind fought me, that war was long over. You’d already captured me utterly because of who you were.
“I loved you through space and time before, and I’ll do it again. I’ll do it again. I’m with you, I’m with you, always,”
Though it may be a selfish decision, when I perish from this earth, I want memories to be where I reside in the minds and hearts of those who knew me, without a trace of the host to be found.
Her host betrayed her, and I have no use for a place she doesn’t exist. She’s not here. I could search the entirety of this earth, and I won’t find her. That’s death.
“She wanted me to remind you that the true brilliance of any strategist lies within the surprise . . . and I am her last wish, Tyler.”
The reason I breathe now is to make sure those I’m loyal to don’t have to desperately search for the rise and fall of the chest of those they love. From that, I can and will protect them the way I wasn’t.
Because it was heaven to love her, too, though I was in a sacrificial type of state. In order to have it, I had to give my heart permission to love her, though her loss altered my soul.
So I’ll protect them, so these questions don’t fucking haunt them. I’ll keep their secrets and watch them fuck up and lose their chances to stupidity. I’ll watch them hurt each other and take each other for granted. Knowing the cost, I won’t say a fucking word, but fight for their individual breaths in between s...
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They are my weakness and reason. For them, I’ll breathe and will my heart to keep beating. Only for them.
Her voice echoes back to me one last time as my severed heart beats soundly for the first time in years. Even if it remains in pieces.
THE END . . . but truthfully, it’s just the beginning.
