Midgar High School

I can't sleep at night. I pretend to sleep for you, so that I don't worry you.

I see her face, right in front of me, and the sleep that came to me so easily before eludes me now. She really hated me. And I...when I looked at her, I choked on my tongue and her black evil almost swallowed me. Or perhaps that was my own evil, my personal hatred mirrored back to her and then to me, exponentially.

I'm too cowardly to be called truly good any longer.

A truly good person would have tried to redeem her. I'm selfish, and I am not brave. Did I always say the word "destroy?" Yes, "destroy." That was it. But what I did was more than that. I murdered her. She was a human being. Some woman once spent nine months with that evil witch in her womb. Someone gave birth to her, nursed her, fed her, clothed her, raised her, loved her...

Lucrecia was married. I've made a widower with my hands. And I don't have the courage to tell him. I should. Even if he is as evil as she, even if he wishes to kill me, Hojo deserves... something. Does he even know where she is, that he will never see her again? That she truly is burning in hell?

Vincent loved her, and perhaps he still loves her. I thought I saw that in him. He said he doesn't care about her; I don't...believe him. It's too easy, too comforting, too simple. What a...strange relationship I have with him. What would he think if he had not admired me? A dramatic stranger, wanting to kill his lover and save his soul? My motivations were (and are) always sing-song and petty. Selfish. I wanted him for myself, and I wanted to kill her for having him first. It was that simple.

Or maybe it is a little more complicated. It's true that she was base. It's true that destroying her was a duty that I needed to perform. It's true that she has helped to ruin the lives of people I care about. She would have done the same to others, if she had been left free to do so. And I would not have killed her if these things were not true...if she had been a good woman, I could have left Vincent alone. Perhaps.

Maybe my selfishness can be hidden behind those happy rationales, but it does not stop the fact that I enjoyed it. Enjoyed freeing him, freeing my new friends, but mostly enjoyed freeing myself from the possibility of her. And now, late at night, I pay the price for it. Slowly, slowly, in fat tears, in hitching breath, in lack of sleep and bloodshot eyes. In the fact that I can't kiss him without seeing her face as the demon ripped her open from shoulder to navel, without recalling the acidic shock that swept through me at the sight, because I caused it. In the way that Vincent looks at me as if I was something pure and good, when I'm really nothing compared to anything. Especially him. Because he was always only a beautiful victim.

Vincent. I...don't know what I can tell you. I don't deserve... I have killed someone that you loved.

I wonder, will that ever truly be all right?

I wish that it was as simple as I boasted it would be. Maybe I was in the right, but maybe it was all as gray as she said, and maybe I was in the wrong. Maybe when we fought we were both gray; maybe the only difference was the gradient. I was not perfect and she was not completely evil. So the key, the difference was in the degree.

Is this the way the knight feels, when the dragon is dead? Covered in its dark blood and unable to touch the prize?

So when I hear you move across the room, when you rock the bed and curl up behind me I think that it is a dream. I freeze, wondering why you are not biting me, hitting me. If you had done to me what I have done to you, I would have hated you.

I pretend that I am asleep, so you do not go away.

You are very strange. You carefully pull the blanket up and your head hits the pillow with a soft sound. Your arm slips around my waist. I can feel your bare torso against my back, your breath against my neck. I think I hear you mutter something, but I can't hear you because I'm trying to keep my body perfectly still, trying to breathe slowly and separate from the slow, fat, guilty tears that course down my cheeks to my pillow. It becomes uncomfortably sticky, but moving my head would be suspicious, so I don't move. I don't want you to worry, because it isn't your fault. It's mine.

And it's just a nightly ritual, mourning for a person I did not even like. And it is already almost over, the tears run out. And finally I no longer have to command myself to breathe slowly, and I can stay still and listen to you sleep with me.

God, I love you, Vincent. You are so strange. You believed everything I ever said to you without a moment's hesitation, without any mistrust. And you are so protective of me, as if I were that precious, good, brave person that I could have been if I had never met you.

I wish I was brave enough to tell you that I love you. Please don't leave until I find out what is wrong with me. At least, do not leave me after what I had to do. I don't deserve anything, but it was...a very hard thing that I did for us. The dragon covered me in her blood, and I will be heartbroken if I do not get to clean off the filthy stuff and claim some sort of compensation.

Hopefully in the form of a beautiful bizarre man, you. If I do not somehow, miraculously get you out of this, then I will be disconsolate.

I shift, slightly. You are asleep. Either that or you are pretending like I am. I like to think you are sleeping, because you are naturally more honest than me. The weight of your arm at my waist is making me sleepy, heavy lidded, a feather's touch of nervousness. It makes me want to turn and wake you up, to see if I can't convince you to touch me after all.

But...I don't because I am and always will be a coward. And besides, I think that I would like you to touch me on your own. I do not want to have to persuade you to love me. Decorum aside, part of me still wonders how much you could desire me. By the way Lucrecia spoke...you have been indecent in the past.

Would it hurt you to be indecent again? Would it be narcissistic to imagine that you could be telling me the truth? Would it hurt us more than it would help me, if I did that to you?

I will leave the end result up to you, then. I will be your friend, I will help you with anything, everything. I will try to wash off the dragon's blood.

And I will try to sleep. Really, truly, this time.