A young woman had been killed, murdered in cold blood, the papers said. Whatever noteworthy family members she had left behind were not only, understandably, in mourning, but also desperate to find whoever was responsible for this tragedy and hold them accountable. Among them were her sister, Ophelia, who some people claimed had gone a little insane over this loss; and her boyfriend, Pollux, who wore the darkest shades of black and the hardest facial expressions in the weeks after her death. Among them was her killer. Holden Vaisey, this killer's best friend, had watched the events unfold like the one-man audience at the enactment of a drama. He had missed most of the lead-up to this breaking point, by his own volition, but he had been there when she had died. He had seen the desperation creep into her eyes the moment she realized that she had put her trust in the wrong person, and the gravity of this mistake. He had seen it leave her eyes as well, along with every last glimmer of life at one stroke of his best friend's hand. The months that had led up to this moment had been agonizing to watch, but now his front row seat was paying off. He supported Pollux fully in this decision, not only because their relation had become more than a nuisance to Holden, but because he thought it better for Pollux to rid himself of this unsustainable foolery. He surely would have helped out, had Pollux himself not come to the conclusion that entertaining a charade like this was anything but beneficial to him. Taking matters into his own hands had proven to Holden that Pollux, when it came down to it, was still the man he took him for. They had not talked about it, Holden hadn't known the plan or if there even was one, but he had sensed it, the stern determination and the cool composure that had taken over his friend, and he had felt at ease, just as much as if he had taken this life himself.
Somebody who did not know Holden Vaisey might see this: A deeply disturbed man reenacting the traumas of his youth. An affinity for the violent things in life born from the foreignness of affection and devaluation of empathy. An untrue self-image through distorted reflection. The physical denial of feeling — quite literally the drowning of emotions to the brink of extinction, self-torture under the pretense of betterment.
Somebody who did not know Holden Vaisey might also see this: A love, like a flame, obsessive, hungry, scorching and selfish to the core, yet oxymoronically sacrificial. The sickening satisfaction over the misery of somebody else, only unusual and therefore more twisted in the context of their mutual and exclusive love. The routined incomprehension and denial of either.
Holden Vaisey himself was happy. Not the pure, unadulterated form of happiness, the innocent joy that grows rarer with wisdom, nor the twisted schadenfreude, the malicious pleasure at others' despair. He was simply and wantlessly content. It did not matter that someone had died and that consequentially something had to die. Things were like they were before, or soon they would be. He had not cared at all for this phase, this short-lived phenomenon that had been his best friend's relationship, and so it was good that it was over.
He didn't know how it had started, and he wanted and didn't want to understand it in equal measures. The less he knew the better, it should seem, but the material with which his mind filled in the gaps was at times just as unsavory as the sting of the truth, if not worse. He caught himself asking Pollux to decide in his favor time and time again, a little private experiment conducted in order to measure how invested in their friendship he should remain: "Stay a little longer?", "Are you coming?", "Any plans for tonight?"
The girl — rather than a woman, because they too barely were men — was secondary to Holden. They had met before, of course they had, whoever met Pollux would subsequently meet Holden as well, but she had instantly fallen in the same category that Holden filed most acquaintances in: Useless, uninteresting, unimportant. She was but background noise to him. The more surprised he was when Pollux began to seek her favor. She was not plain aesthetically, but she lacked even a spark of charm to Holden, and beyond that, she represented the class of leeches and lowlives that neither of them had ever paid much mind to, as well as political opinions that should alert even Pollux' sense of self-preservation. She was not only their inferior, she was their opposite. And yet Pollux spent every moment he could afford by her side — time that had previously been reserved for Holden, because of course they spent every spare minute of their life together. It was elemental to their bond. It was all they knew.
