lolita | bellerín

end

"It's you, it's you,
it's all for you
everything i do
i tell you all the time
heaven is a place on earth with you
tell me all the things you want to do
i heard that you like the bad girls
honey, is that true?
they say that the world was built
for two
only worth living if somebody
is loving you."
----------

Salome faced Hector as he lay next to her in the hospital bed, their (still unnamed) daughter lying in his arms with her head on his chest. It had been an entire week, and each day Salome could feel herself slowly losing the life her body was once capable of holding.

It was a terrible feeling, of course. Dying, and actively knowing that you were. She was weak beyond words. She couldn't move, couldn't hold her daughter; it took her an appalling amount of energy just to speak and to smile.

On the day after her childbirth, she'd met Hector's mother for the first time. It was something shocking for everyone—as Hector's mother hadn't even learned about the fact that she was a grandmother until earlier on that same day.

The next day, nearly half of Hector's team had visited the Colombian; it was overwhelming, but such a sweet gesture. Then it was Calum, visiting all the way from London to spend the entire day with Salome. 

Anna and the other wives came on the fourth day, and on the fifth was quite the surprise: her own brother. They'd talked and interacted lovingly, the way real siblings were supposed to. He'd apologized a million times, nearly every other sentence, for everything. Robert was next, of course; its needless to say what they must've talked about.

She then spent the rest of her time with Hector. They put all of the troubles of their broken relationship aside, as it would cease to exist sooner rather than later, and bonded like true parents while inwardly thriving over the lost memories of their past.

"She looks a lot like you." Hector finally stated, with a small smile. "That's good." And bad at the same time, he thought, because she would only grow up to look  like the one he'd loved and lost.

Salome's jaded brown eyes pierced Hector's, then her daughters. She bit her lip as she lifted a hand up and ran her fingers over the girl's cheeks, her eyes burning. "I guess you're right," She finally whispered.

Hector sighed to himself. "I'm sorry for everything, Salome. If I could erase time and do it all over again, I would. But I would never let you go, or wish to. Especially not like this. You're the sweetest and most beautiful thing I've ever known."

Salome tugged the corners of her lips into a forgiving smile. "Hector, we all make mistakes."

"But this," Hector used a hand to press any threatening years out of his eyes. "This is a mistake that's unforgivable. Maybe if I'd just waited for you to grow up, then—"

"Life isn't guaranteed in that sense, Hector. Someone like me has always been bound to lose it sooner rather than later, and it's okay that you realized that."

"But you're just a kid." He muttered, his bloodshot eyes glossing over. "You had your whole life ahead of you."

Salome's eyes remained on the large, glossy ones of her baby before they slowly closed, leaving her to admire the sleeping child. "Well, that's alright. I never really wanted to grow up, anyways."

But the truth was that she had grown up. Hector had encountered thirty year olds less mature than the girl laying next to him. She'd seen, and experienced, way too much struggle for one lifetime. And while Hector wanted nothing more than for this struggle to end, he didn't wish for it to end this way.

As her daughter fell asleep, so did she.  Salome managed to utter one final I love you—knowing that the one difference between her and her daughter was that the girl would wake up and say hello to the world, then grow to explore the planet and all it had to offer—while Salome's eyes would remain shut forever, and she would say goodbye to the cruel world around her, finally ending the struggle she'd known for the entirety of her existence as life.