Universe (VegasPete) R18

I

It was just another day, where the pale morning light pierced through the curtains and met his eyes—those beautiful and mesmerizing eyes—gradually opening to me, revealing two hazel gemstones that gazed at me as if I were, am, and will be the last wonder on earth.

Somewhere in those silent early hours of the day, where my hand, which never let go of his during all those years, press against his chest — to feel, to catch the steady rhythm of his heart, the heart that once belonged to me.

My love's lullaby soothing me to sleep at night, a touch, a sound, beyond physical, light, soft, familiar. Yet so painful.

Where the touch of his lips against mine, lips whose contours I know by heart, whispers the words I've yearned for my entire life, softly turning into a smile. A smile that brightens the darkest corners of my broken soul.

Where our heartbeats meet in those sheets where we made love so many times, where his back arched, and his arms enveloped me with his warmth, his scent, his love. Where his nails dug into my skin, leaving his own scriptures for just the two of us to read. When his moans became my hymn. He engraved in my heart those three words escaping his mouth in an adoring litany, and my name resounded as his prayer, offering his body and soul on my altar.

When he sold his soul to the devil to save the devil himself.

He impaled himself on my knife, his own sweet sacrifice. When war is all you've known, how do you come to accept someone offering you peace?

When you are nothing else, nothing more than shattered, when everything feels empty and numb, but where rage is never enough, will never be enough to extinguish that fire burning everything inside and around; when you are nothing but a shadow eclipsing the sun.

When you watch the only way out disappear.

Another peaceful day, where I lay a last feather-light touch on the smooth skin of his cheek, the one I used to kiss oh so tenderly.

"It's over," I said. And time stood still.

In that suspended moment when Pete's eyes widened, when his breath caught, and when I felt the rhythm of his heart racing at the speed of light toward the chasm I had dug myself, I knew he understood.

That day, I left, hearing his scream, witnessing his tears, catching the scent of his pain, of his fear, and feeling the bruising grip of his hand trying to hold me back.

Yet, I let our bed sheets soak up his tears and the last remaining whimper faded away as I closed the door to our bedroom behind me, leaving pieces of my still beating and bleeding heart in the palm of his hand. I don't need it anymore anyway.

I was, after all, just a bad dream.