𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐃𝐎 𝐔𝐒 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 - 𝟏𝟖+

T E N

K E I R A

Moscow, Russia

The clicking of the metal ring as it slid across the floor still echoed inside my head, never fading away like an echo was supposed to. I hated how I'd let him get to me, but unlike him, I couldn't just flip a switch, and act like he didn't mean anything to me. He did, he was everything to me, and that was why I gave him up, but he didn't see it like that, to him what I had was a betrayal, and he wasn't wrong, but this man—the man he'd become—got off on pain and suffering, yet the knowledge that he still didn't hate me like he'd insinuated had my heart swelling with hope, even when I knew it only breeds eternal misery. Perhaps a little bit of misery could revive me, and wake me up from this nightmare.

I knew I had to play by his desire for me to get through to him, but he hardly ever left me an opening. I no longer recognized him. I sighed as I felt my legs wobble, eyes stinging with unshed tears. I'd cry for the years we missed tonight, but before I'd resign myself to the heavy burden of the pain branding my soul, I crouched, looking for the ring he'd thrown away so carelessly just to deepen the wounds in my soul. I thought he'd make it easy for the both of us by just shooting me, but now I knew, he wanted to do to me what I did to him before he killed me—he wanted to break me. Well, tough luck because I wasn't going down without a fight, and one way or another he'd meet me halfway, the sins of our past, forgiven, but never forgotten for they made us who we were.

The metal looked abandoned against the cold hardwood floor, and it been for eight years, a slow poison killing the both of us with the memories of the time we had. Leaning down, I curled my fingers around it, and placed it in my palm, curling my fingers around it to feel how cold it was. How it was no longer a symbol of love, but abandonment, lies, and secrets. Feeling moisture trickle down my cheeks, I didn't bother wiping it away, and blinked, allowing more tears to fall, and seal the fate of our impossible love. Reaching for the necklace around my neck, I unclasped it, and removed it from around my neck, my own wedding ring taunted me as I slid his inside, and clasped it back, both the rings clinging and clashing against each other, the void inside my chest widening. I started rubbing my arms, suddenly too cold, and settled on the same armchair Niko was on before I came in. His aftershave's scent still lingered, and I took a deep breath, inhaling him, allowing his woody, all manly scent to embrace me, knowing that he wouldn't.

For eight years my eyes had stayed dry as if they knew I had no right to shed a single tear, not when it was all my fault. Not when I was the one who set fire to my livelihood. It was a fire I'd started, but it blew out of proportion, and I no longer had any control over it, maybe I never did, and only fooled myself into thinking that I did. A dull pain started building around my skull, reminding me of the killer headache waiting for me, my eyes stung with all the tears that I couldn't stop, one after the other, I felt droplets trail down my face, clinging to my jaw, and finally dropping like a tired drop of rain on my collarbone. In the moonlit room, I felt memories and regret choking me, it had been a while since I dug my grave, and now the pull of it just became too enticing for me to ignore. I rubbed the heel of my palm against my closed eyes, willing myself to stop, hoping that the physical pain would banish these thoughts from my head.

If only it worked that way.

Drowning my misery away with alcohol had never appealed to me, maybe because I'd wanted to feel the sting, I rubbed salt on my wounds, hoping they'd never heal, that the pain would remind me of all that I'd lost, and when the temptation to return to him was too much, it reminded me why I'd chosen this infinite darkness over a lifetime of borrowed time with the man I loved. The only man I've ever loved. I'd experienced why love was volatile, why falling in love was like flying, the flight was addicting, but gravity was an enemy, and when it pulled back, the falling was no longer a rhapsody, it was that haunting second before a bullet tore your flesh away, leaving you wounded, bloodied, and just helpless.