Rage, rage against

Me

"I have something to tell you."

Standing on my doorstep, just like the first time I summoned him. Only this time, he's here of his own accord. He's smiling, bursting with excitement about something, a bubble grown so large within him he can't wait to let it out.

Come on in, I say.

He steps into my living room, looks around, takes everything in. The hoovered carpet, the freshly-washed sofa cushions, the Polaroid of Sam I propped up on the coffee table. All bright beneath the soft yellow light. A drastic change from the last time he was here, when I grieved and raged and wept into his neck. I realize I haven't seen him in a week, and I put my arms around him and press my cheek against his, breathing in his familiar smell of tea leaves and old books.

What's the news? I ask.

He sobers. Moves me gently aside and leads me to the couch. He's anxious, all of a sudden, and I wish I could see into him, past his folklore eyes.

"I've been back," he says slowly. I regard him blankly, and he continues, "to my people."

Bit by bit, his story emerges, like a butterfly leaving its cocoon. A scientist in his father's corner invented a superweapon in his absence. The guy had worked on it in secret for a long time, waiting for the right moment to deploy it against the separatists.

"He succeeded," the elf says. He's smiling. "They're no threat to us anymore. I can go back to my people."

There are laws that need to be drafted around the use of the superweapon. The matter of negotiating truces. Bargaining, subterfuge, trials. The long process of wresting back control. As the crown prince, he has his duties cut out for him for the next few years.

Wow, I say.

"One other thing," he adds, coyly. He's blushing, waiting for me to egg him on.

Well? I ask.

He smiles. That smile, I'll remember it forever.

He says, "I'm in love."

Heart racing, I just stare at him. There is a silence within me, the silence of a forest. Then I feel the tiniest twist like a dislodged pebble, somewhere behind my throat.

Dying inside. Those two words are such a cliche, until they're not.

I croak, Who?

My ceiling light illuminates his ecstatic face, framing the aristocratic angles of his cheekbones. "The scientist," he says. "I spoke to him upon my return, and we fell in love. It was very quick." He pauses dreamily, so I have time to adjust the expression on my face. "My father had no objections to our relationship, seeing that my love had single-handedly changed our circumstances."

Inside me, the silence is now deafening, unbearable. I try out the sounds of various words in my head, wincing at how uncomfortably they echo around the cavern of my mind. That's really great, I hear myself saying. My voice is high-pitched, awkward, loaded with false cheer. I'm so happy for you, I add.

All this time, we never learn. We keep making the same mistakes, over and over again, hoping that someone someday would swoop in and save us. Those mistakes, burrowing like tiny parasites under our skin. Eating holes in our hearts. Itching and itching, until the agony makes us want to destroy ourselves from within.

Too late, he is looking at me with those bottomless eyes, far too knowing for my comfort. "I'm sorry," he says. He touches my shoulder, like a friend would. "It wasn't fair of me to come here and spring this upon you. To say goodbye, and expect you to share my enthusiasm. Truth is, there's no other way things could be different. I'm afraid... this is the last we'll be seeing each other for a long, long time."

Okay, I say flatly. My voice is curiously brittle, and I don't want to say any more, in case it breaks.

"And besides..." he bites his lip and hesitates, looking down at his hands in his lap. He's embarrassed all of a sudden. "I always thought you were just in it for the sex."

Right now, I can't think of a response to that. I'm imagining Sam, passing my door in the early hours of the morning. Leaning his head against the frame, listening to me snoring and muttering in my sleep. I'm always bone-tired after cruising, and he knows better than to wake me, in case I try to talk him out of whatever he's planning. He doesn't want that; doesn't want to unload his troubles on me. He's taken most of our drug supply and stuffed it into his sweatshirt. Two months ago that sweatshirt fit; now it just hangs from his skeletal frame. He grabs the car keys from the wooden dish near the front door. Peers around the dark and silent living room, breathing in the stillness one last time. Looking around, perhaps wishing me well. Then into the car. He's running a cold, and he turns up the heater as he drives. Even in late summer, he's always cold. He parks beside the rushing river and rips open the drug packets. One last trip for the road, all the excess he'd denied himself over the years. Fifteen minutes later, he pads out of the car in his socks. His sneakers lie abandoned below the driver's seat, for the police to find later. He'll never know that I'll never buy another car again, never be able to drive past the river without thinking of him. He thinks one last time of the people he's loved, of the kids in the school, of me, and then he closes his eyes and dives into the swift, cold water. Now, he thinks, before his head goes under the water, things will be easier for everyone. He's weakening against the current, going under. His consciousness a fraying thread, he thinks, I did my best.

I stand up. I say to the elf, well, since it's your last time here, you should probably fuck me. Something to remember me by, yeah?

"Well..." he hesitates, and I suddenly don't want to hear the rest of it. Forget it, I start to say, but just then something shifts subtly below his expression. It's not quite pity, or sentiment, or even desire. It's something much, much, worse, and I hate myself for even seeing it.

"All right." He moves towards me. "One last time, then."

Our bodies remember the familiar movements, even if our hearts don't. As he spoons me against him and fondles me from behind, I realize that something large and delicate has slipped out of place between us. It's a seismic movement, and I wonder if he senses it as well.

Now, I'm letting him do whatever he wants with my body. I don't know if it's because I'm trying to reclaim that lost feeling, or drive it away. For all my urging, his actions and preferences are still endearingly vanilla. It's sweet, and the sex is still good, but it's not the same, not really. Over the course of a few minutes, we've become different people entirely. His heart isn't in it anymore; his eyes are faraway, thinking of his scientist.

Once, it wouldn't have bothered me to have the person I was fucking fantasizing about doing someone else. In fact, I used to prefer it, so I could just be an object to them, and they wouldn't ever remember what I looked like. They wouldn't call me, or form an attachment, or come too close. But now, it hits a raw nerve. After some time, I can't bear to look at his face, so I turn over and make him continue from behind.

When we're done, it seems like hours have passed. He sprawls across my couch, naked, his dick soft and dripping against one thigh. I look at him carefully, remembering this moment, remembering everything about him.

Any chance you'll come back for a visit? I ask. In my head, my voice is jaunty and insouciant, but it comes out on a plaintive note.

He turns slowly to look at me. His eyes are expansive with regret. "I don't expect so," he says, quietly. "As I said, my duties will be fairly demanding. I just don't want to get your hopes up, is all."

Not even that mind-to-mind thing? I ask. I've abandoned all pretense, and we both know it.

"I can't. I'm sorry. Some of the higher-ups were angry that I allowed an outsider, a human, to access our neural network. It's considered a serious crime amongst my people. I only got off because my father is royal."

I understand, I say. Then there's another silence, and I'm at a loss as to how to fill it.

"I should go." He speaks with gentleness, and I like to think he's drawing each word out, slowly, prolonging our remaining time together. He puts on his clothes, and just like that, whatever that was between us is at an end.

At the door, he bends to kiss me, but I move away. I don't want to make the mistake of doing that again, knowing that he'll never truly see me standing before him. I compromise by hugging him instead. Good luck, I say in a dry little voice. I wish you every happiness.

He gives me a squeeze. "And I wish the same for you." He lingers for a moment, and then just like that, he steps away. In the warm eddy left by his departure, I smell chocolate and butter, and lazy Saturday mornings in bed.

I watch the elf until he's gone, when I can no longer see him in the distance. Then I button my coat and let the door of my apartment slam shut behind me. I walk. The sere winter wind stings my eyes and cheeks, but I keep walking. It is pitch black, but I don't stop until I reach the river.

The guardrail is slightly bent in one place, where he accidentally nosed the car too close. I put my hand against it. I'm not wearing gloves, and the feel of the metal sends a chill ringing down my arm.

In the cold, in the dark, it would be so easy to fall overboard. One misstep, and you would go tumbling and spinning into the river. Your life would be over in a second, perhaps two, perhaps three. The dark water making a perfect envelope over your head, with no one to hear your screams.

I close my eyes. The wind tugs at the edges of my coat. A great weariness settles over me, and I can't muster the energy to move, be it forward or backward. Sam would've understood that feeling perfectly. Before he died, did he pause at this very spot? Did he stop to think of the mess that his life had become, all whilst watching the colors and shapes writhing and flashing before his eyes?

I say his name softly to myself, like a prayer. I'm begging him to talk to me, to help me understand. Sam, Sam, I whisper, over and over again, but there's no other sound but the crashing of the river below and the soughing of the wind.

It doesn't matter. I've got tonight and tomorrow and the rest of my life. I rest my forehead gently against the guardrail and wait patiently for him to respond.