RESPONSABILITY RAIN

VIII

Tyler sat down at the plastic table. The room was cold and grey. He looked out the window and wondered what he was doing here. He hadn't seen her in a month, what had she become? Who did she use to be? Did he ever even know her?

The door opened and a guard escorted a pale and tired-looking Lucy in. She was wearing an orange jumpsuit that was way too big for her and dirty white sneakers. She was handcuffed. Her nails were bitten, her wrists were red and irritated. She looked nothing like the Lucy he thought he knew.

When she sat down, searching for his eyes, he couldn't look at her.

"Please, Tyler. Say something." she said, as soon as she sat.

"Fifteen minutes." mumbled the guard and he stood by the door.

"Look at me. Please, look at me." she said. "I need you to look at me, I can't even look at myself." she cried.

Tyler lifted his head a little and his eyes were dark. He glared at her for a moment, then looked out the window. After a minute, he stood up.

"You know what? I don't know why I came, I should just g-"

"Tyler! Please." she whispered and wiped a tear away.

He remembered how he was always the one to do that. His heart jumped and he knew he still loved her, despite what she'd done. But what she'd done wasn't morally acceptable and Tyler was a man of values. He couldn't date a murderer. An assassin. A killer.

No, he couldn't. But something made him stop and sit down. He waved at the guard who was already approaching, ready to take Lucy back to her cell, and told him that he'd stay.

Lucy looked at him and tried to stop sobbing. She didn't want him to see her like this. She wiped her tears away and spat to the ground. The guard groaned. She frowned. She wanted to feel strong, and to feel strong, she had to look strong, because strong was all she wasn't at the moment.

"I know you think I'm not a good person. But I'm not a bad one. I know you think that I'm horrible and that I have no soul, no compassion, no empathy. Hell, maybe you think I'm a sociopath. I know you wonder why and how I could." She paused and when she looked at him, she knew she was right. "If I tell you the truth, you won't believe me. The judges didn't believe me. I don't even know if you can ever believe me again."

"I want to hate you!" he shouted, suddenly. "I want to hate you but I can't, and it's killing me, maybe more than it's killing you." Lucy started crying again, despite all of her efforts not to. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to trust you again, and I swear to you, I want to, but you can't blame me!"

"I'm not blaming you, Tyler!"

"Don't say my name."

A tear rolled down her cheek.

"What did you want me to do? Tell you? Turn myself in?"

"You killed somebody, Lucy. You killed him. Of course you should've turned yourself in."

Lucy scoffed. "What would you have done if you were me, huh? Ruin my life for an accident? I had just met you when it happened, and you made me happier than anyone had ever made me. I didn't want to lose everything, now that I had an okay life! It all happened so fast anyway. He was walking down the street and I ran into him and pushed him into the ground by accident. His head hit the sidewalk, I panicked, he didn't move, didn't breathe. I didn't touch him, I was scared as hell. No one was going to believe me when I'd say it was an accident! There was no one in that street to back me up on my story! And guess what, when I got a closer look at his face, I recognized him. I looked at his glassy eyes and that was a boy I had spent my childhood with. That was the son of my violent step-father. His identity gave me motive."

"You have to admit, it's a strange coincidence."

"I admit it. And I've been feeling bad about it from the moment it happened. You have no idea how it has haunted my nights and my days. I will always be sorry for what I did, but sorrys don't get people's sons back from the dead."

Tyler looked at her. His expression softened.

"I'm not done, I have more reasons to hate you."

"Bring it on."

"You didn't tell me. I lived a lie for a year and you let me live it."

"How do you casually bring murder up at breakfast? Hi honey, how did you sleep, I didn't, because all I could think of was the face of my 16-year-old ex-half-brother dead on the sidewalk after I pushed him by accident." she replied. "What we had was not a lie. Don't think that. I still love you."

Tyler stayed still and his eyes stared at Lucy for a couple of seconds.

"You just gave me a lot to think about. Don't ask me what I'm doing, I don't know yet." he said and stood up, before walking past the guard out of the door.

Lucy sadly smiled a little. Maybe all hope wasn't lost yet.