Up in Flames

"When I look at you, do you know what I see?"

He laid on his back in the grass, looking up at her as she leaned over him, nose touching his, one hand on either side of his head.

"What do you see?" She smiled down at him, green eyes sparkling.

"I see everything that's good in this world." Cradling the back of her head with his right hand, his left came up to caress her cheek as he brought her lips to his, wishing he could freeze time and stay like this forever.

_____

Shoving his cigarette into the ashtray, he twisted it back and forth between his thumb and forefinger several times before letting it drop down into the tray, a frustrated sigh escaping his lips. He placed the ashtray atop the bedside table before resting his elbows on his knees and burying his face in his hands.

Shit. Reaching for another cigarette, he held it up and studied it for a moment before bringing it to his lips, gripping it between his teeth as he felt around on the sheets for his lighter.

It felt like his brain was turning end over end, its contents cardboard boxes full of pages of memories, tumbling over and spilling out inside of a reckless moving van. His head felt as if it would explode.

"Fuck it." Unable to find his lighter, he unfolded his legs and swung them over the side of his bed, bare feet padding across the old, thread bare gray carpet in the direction of the bathroom.

If only you had come home a few minutes earlier.

He froze, hands balling into fists as he bit down on the cigarette that he still held between his teeth. Taking a deep breath, he tried to still the trembling that threatened to spread from his shoulders down his whole body.

Maybe that isn't it at all. Maybe you know, somewhere deep inside, that you did it.

Chest heaving, he fell to his knees in the center of the room.

How did it feel? Did you crush her skull between those hands of yours? Stand on her throat? Kick her stomach in? And then, to add insult to injury, or maybe to fill some sadistic fantasy, you set fire to her dead body. How vile.

Or did you burn her alive, a more indirect route? Of course, the police would expect brute force from you, but wouldn't arson throw them off the trail?

And after all this time, your denial of your guilt feels genuine because you've lied to yourself and others so many times. You can't distinguish what is reality and what is fantasy. What is truth, and what is a lie.

You're a loose canon. You destroy everything you come into contact with, it was only a matter of time...

"Shut up!" The cigarette fell from his mouth as he roared out into the air, silencing the voice, if only for a moment. Anguish swept over him in waves, sticking in his throat and choking him as he sobbed, anger following as his disgust for himself grew, threatening to swallow him back down into the black depths of doubt.

Bringing his right his down into the carpet, he heard the rip as it punched through the layer of fabric and padding, and the crack as it collided with the subflooring beneath. His chest felt like it was on fire. He couldn't breath, couldn't move.

No.

"I know what is true. And I know what is real."

Pulling his hand out of the floor, let himself fall onto his side, blood running from his knuckles and staining the carpet.

"I don't know what happened. After all this time, I'm no closer to an answer than I was then." He breathed out, his eyes closing as exhaustion came for his prone body.

"But I do know that I can't give up. I will find her or I will find the bastards responsible.

And then we will both have peace."

_____

I'm not entirely here,
Half of me has disappeared.