Love Thy Enemy

Chapter 17: The Devil is Dead

After Valentino falls back asleep at my side, I leave the room in search for a bathroom, afraid that if I use the bedroom toilet, I will wake him up. At the end of the hallway, I turn right and enter another bedroom. It is similar to Valentino's but not quite as glamorous. After using the toilet, I wash my hands and turn to leave but my reflection in the mirror stops me in my tracks. This mirror is huge, reflecting my entire body, from head to toe. It is perhaps the only object that does not belong in the house and the only difference between this bathroom and Valentino's bathroom. It is silver, instead of gold or red like everything else in the mansion, with yellow flowers decorating its corners.

The young woman in the mirror staring back at me is unrecognizable. Her red lipstick is smeared and her mascara has left black lines on her eyelids and extending to her cheekbones. Her eyes, which are opened wide, are a lighter shade of brown, almost copper. The color of her skin is golden, as oppose to mine which is a sickening shade of white. Lowering my eyes I see she is stronger than me, and that her skeleton is hidden behind a layer of strength. She is a sexual creature, exuding desire, even ecstasy. She knows things, things about death and life, freedom and sex. I wonder about her. What does she see when she looks at me. Is she a slave of the past? Does she even remember me? I lift my hand to touch her, but she winces, shying from the touch of an old friend. She rejects me the way a body rejects a foreign creatures. How can I compete with her? I close my eyes but when I open them, she is still there. She is beautiful, I think. I don't want to be beautiful. I put my fist to her face and the glass shatters into pieces, but not all of it. Still attached to the frame, below the left hand flower, I see an inscription in cursive letters. I pluck it out.

Never be afraid to face your fears.

Love,

Mom

Valentino must have deliberately moved the mirror out of his room. Perhaps the thing he fears most in this world is himself. With the piece of glass in hand, I walk back into the bedroom to see that Valentino is still asleep. His face is turned so that his scar is facing me. I wonder what he sees when he looks in the mirror, if he even bothers to look anymore.

He made me beautiful, he made me strong, he introduced me to power, and we became quick friends. We have become so close in the past several weeks that I fear power has abandoned Valentino in search for a new ally. When Valentino told me that everybody deserves to die for something, he was right. I no longer care what people deserve, or what people do to deserve it. I care about what I want, what I believe is just, what people owe me. I lay down next to him, and he adjusts his body so that I am close by his side, as close as two people can be, perhaps even closer. Conscious of every movement my body makes, every breath and every sound, I lift the sharp piece of glass and drive it into his corroded artery.

He lifts his hand to his neck to find that the piece of glass is still stuck deep in his throat and that his blood is pouring out of his body, onto his white, expensive pillow. He extracts the knife out of his neck in shock, flickering his eyes from the blood stained writing to me. I leave his side to watch him squirm from a distance. Just as the light leaves his eyes, a true pain stabs my heart because I think I really did love Valentino. It doesn't matter what he did to me, to my friends, to the world.

"I love you" I whisper; I think he hears me. And then he dies.