Flickering Shadows

Epilogue: Lucy's Final Words (Chapter 28)

Epilogue: Lucy's Final Words

I closed the book.  I looked up to see cameras flashing and news reporters trying to get my attention.  I pointed to an Asian woman in the front row and the noise died down. "Mr. Armstrong, what inspired you to write this book about Miss Arnold?" she asked her pen at the ready.

           "Well, Lucy was a very special girl to me.  I thought her story deserved to be told." I answered.

           "What gives you the authority to write it?"

           "I was very close to her, as you heard." I said. "Someone was bound to write a biography on her anyway, and I am sure she would rather it be done by someone close to her than some reporter who knew nothing."

           There was much tittering until I called on a man in the back row. "Are you dating anyone now?"

           I raised an eyebrow. "No. Next question!"

           It had been five years since Lucy's death.  I was twenty-nine years old now, and very single.  I suppose I had not given finding a nice girlfriend a fair chance.  The last five years had been almost exclusively dedicated to this book, in Lucy's memory.  I doubted another girl would date me while I was compulsively writing it anyway.

           After her death, there was the predicted speculation that I killed her.  That, of course, was completely ridiculous. 

           A short, redhead woman raised her pen in the air. "Mr. Armstrong was it hard to write this book?" she belted out over the noise. "Writing about your deceased daughter and girlfriend?"

           "At times it was, of course.  I was crying almost every day in the two years since her death that I wrote it.  Every day I remembered a day Lucy and I spent together; a moment that I spent with my daughter." I said with a frown. "Remembering those memories gave me hope and kept me alive."

           "Do you still cry now?"  She asked with a smirk.

           I returned her sneer, "Only when it has been a really rough day."

           I answered a few more simple questions and then the one I had least expected came up. 

           A woman no older than me waltzed up to the front of the room.  She had reddish-brown hair and a malicious look on her face that I would recognize anywhere. It was Amanda-older and the same as I remembered. She was still a bitch.  She stood in front of me with her arms folded.

           "Hello, Amanda." I said politely. 

           "Hello, Dylan." Cameras flashed incessantly to get a picture of her.  People already started speculating that she was my secret girlfriend.

           "Can I help you?" I asked.

           "Yeah," she said. "Do you have the suicide note?"

           I was bewildered. "No..."

           I did not want to think about that note.  Of course I had it memorized, but that was something that was meant to between Lucy and my eyes only.  I was in no mood to release that to the press.  It would remain a secret.

           "Pity." Amanda snarled. I walked off the stage and into my car, ignoring my manager's protests. 

That night I sat on the roof of my apartment in a folding chair.  I pulled out a cigarette and lit up; I did not usually smoke, but I needed some stress relief.  I took turns blowing smoke rings and taking great gulps of a bottle of beer.  In my lap was the suicide letter. I decided to read it again. I put out the cigarette and began to read:

           Dear Dylan, I am beginning to write this on the day we came home from the cemetery.  It will be written on many different days, and when the time is right I will finish it. The deed will be done.

           Babe, I know you are mad at me.  I just can't get married when Reagan is gone.  What is the point?  We don't need paper to tell us we love each other.  Let us date for as long as I live.

           Today was hard for me. People on the streets screamed and chased me for blocks.  I almost did not run and just let them take me.  But I do not want to die that way, at someone else's hands.  I want to die at my own hands.

           I have decided how to go about killing myself.  I have thought about shooting myself, but that requires a gun.  Overdoses are too simple and I could easily be saved from that.  Hanging-how commonplace.  I have decided to slit my wrists. Sounds like a plan to me.

           Today, you dumped me.  I both anticipated and dreaded it.  I do not want to kill myself.  I just do not want to live this life anymore.  I cannot take it.  This is just the event I was searching for-an opportunity for escape.  You gave it to me. Thanks.

           Please, though, don't blame yourself, even though I know you will.  It is not your fault.  I would have done it eventually anyway, whether you stayed or not.  I am so sorry that I have severely fucked up your life.

           I cannot escape my crimes or my past. I cannot escape the love I still have for Reagan.  I cannot escape the love I still hold for you.  Shadows will always remain of my past; I can never escape the memories, even in heaven. Shadows will remind me of our time together. The memories will flicker, fading in and out of sight, as shadows do.  I will always love you, even when all that is left of me is a corpse and the flickering shadows."