Our Contract of Distrust

-- 38 --

I don't know where, when or why.

But...

I think I killed someone.

____________________________

The memory, if it can even be called that, didn't return during one of Trin's 'desensitisation' sessions.

Thankfully.

I don't think I'm ready to confide that in them. That I might be a murderer.

But then I might not be.

It was too vague to tell.

Like an impression from a dream more than a recollection.

What if the whole thing had never even happened? Or I was misreading everything again.

I'd had crazy dreams and suppositions about Feodor that didn't appear to be true after all.

And they'd also felt real to me.

But not as real as the feel of a gun pressed against my palm.

But even if I'd held a gun, heck even if I'd aimed it at someone, that didn't mean I was a murderer.

Was I really capable of...?

What happened with Feodor, that was only because he'd pushed me to it.

But what's not to say that something hadn't pushed me back then as well?

What was it called? Extenuating circumstances? Was that how it would be seen?

But Feodor was there. If it really happened; then he would know.

Was that why he had said that that time? – that he knew who I was when he married me.

But who would want to marry a murderer? Surely even Feodor wasn't that weird.

At any rate, I have to ask him about it.

I have to. I need to. I should.

But...

____________________________

We've just finished dinner. I remain seated at the table while Feodor washes the dishes.

I wait for him to stack them in the drainer before speaking, "Feodor."

"Nn?" He turns and leans against the sink.

Has he gotten more expressive? Or have I just gotten better at reading the question in his face?

"Um," I had every intention of asking, but somehow the words are stuck in my throat.

I want to know. I need to know what kind of person I am, what I've done.

Yet I can't ask. I don't want to know.

"Can we talk about... everything?" I say.

After a moment, Feodor nods. He returns to the seat across from me.

I don't know where to start. Feodor likely doesn't either. Neither of us can maintain eye contact for more than a second.

"I've been meaning to ask you," he finally says, "how much you remember."

"Not much."

"The lab?"

"Snippets."

"Like?"

"Her. Sully. I remember her face." I look at my arm, "The feeling of a needle going in. The drip. Those... trolley things. The cold. The sound of wind or something. Fire. More needles. It's all muddled up."