A Gamer's Guide 353

A few hours later, with my hands no longer covered in dirt and the flowerbeds bereft of husband-killers, I arrive at his door, carrying a frankly oversized bouquet of the flowers I’ve taken. Glyph helped me arrange them a little, sticking in other kinds of weeds I had to pull as well, pulling the whole thing together with a ribbon she agreed to borrow me. Individually, the flowers are very pretty, but now that I’m holding several dozens of them… They feel funeral-y. Except funerals are supposed to use white flowers, and these are black. Splattered with red. Spooky.

I raise my hand to knock at the door, but hesitate. Going by the smell, I can tell that he’s just sitting in bed again, reading. There’s no reason to announce my arrival, since I’ll come in even if he doesn’t answer. 

I take a deep breath. 

…No, even if I won’t heed his wishes not to come in, I’ll still be respectful enough to forewarn him. Trying my best to keep calm, I knock at his door, more aware than ever of the dead, unbeating organ in my chest. How can I even tell if I’m nervous if my heart won’t tell me?

There’s no reply at the door. Unheeding, clutching the bouquet tighter, I pull open the door and step inside.

From the bed, book still in hands, Lett stares at me as though I walked in through a different dimension. His eyes are bloodshot, and there’s some odd quirk to his brows that I haven’t seen before, that unhappily reminds me of Moleman in those weeks after he became mayor. Seeing it on him briefly freezes me where I stand, flowers in hand, door open behind me. I suppose it isn’t too late to leave. But the look on his face…

No. I can’t leave. 

Stepping inside, I close the door behind me with a light click. Let’s see, a good place to put the flowers would be… Ah, there. On the cupboard. Yeah, that’ll be nice. “I’ll get you a vase for it later,” I tell him. Unsurprisingly, he gives no response. This is what I was afraid of. Turning back to him, I try not to recall Simel. They seem so similar, now. All mute and untalking. “Sorry to burst in like this. I just… I had to talk to you.” Something about my words don’t really sit right, though. “No, that isn’t it.” Right. Better not make the same mistake while apologizing for said mistake. “The goddess of children told me that I had to talk to you. That’s why I’m here.”

The expression on his face doesn’t even twitch. This is going to be a tough one, isn’t it?

Chuckling bitterly to myself, I slide across the floor, taking a seat next to his bed. At least he’s looking at me, I guess. Ah, no, wait, he’s gone back to reading. “What book is that?” I wonder aloud. Looking at the cover… Oh, it’s one of the dragon ones. “You really like dragons, don’t you? When I was young, I loved dragons too. It’s funny that we share the concept of dragons, considering that our planets are so different. Except, on earth, dragons aren’t real, and people don’t turn into them. If they did…” An image of a dragon bursting out of a school spewing fire and brimstone everywhere pops into my head, bringing another chuckle out of me. “Wow. It would’ve been horrific.” I hum a little to myself. “Then again, if that were the case… Gosh, would I have loved to become a dragon. One day you’d be getting shunned for group projects and picked last in soccer, and then bam! wings and tail and fangs and fire. No more homework, no more nagging parents. Just you and the endless sky. That would’ve been awesome.”

Something about Lett softens. The hardness in his eyes goes away, and even though he isn’t looking at me, I can tell he isn’t reading, either. What a tsundere.

“A nice fantasy, to be sure. For me. Not for my school. Sure, now I’m a bit calmer about these sorts of things, but if my fourteen-year-old self had gone all big and scaly… The school would’ve burnt down! No, even more than that. I was a spiteful guy back then, you see. The school wouldn’t have been enough. This is only conjecture, of course, but I bet I would’ve burnt down far more than the school alone. Fwoosh! There goes the city!”

His lip quirks up into a tiny, almost imperceptible half-smile. I’m both relieved and disturbed to see it.

“I wonder if there would be more or less orphans in the world after that,” I mutter. The smile on his face dies faster than a struck fly. “People,” I say, “are very individual. That is, if you kill an entire family, not only will there be no one left to mourn, there will also be no one left to blame you. It’s almost like you’re blameless. And besides, you were only acting in self-preservation.” I allow my hands to come together. My nails make clicking noises when I poke them together. Click click, click click. “But there will always be someone left to blame you. I’ve made my fair share of enemies. Powerful enemies who will not be able to rest until I’m dead, something I doubt if I’m even capable of anymore. They’ll figure that one out soon enough. Once they’ve hung me and burnt me and drowned me and quartered me, they’ll realize it’ll never be enough. And at that point, they’ll stop trying to kill me. Instead,” I take a deliberate, deep breath, forcing myself to look into his eyes, “they’ll try to make me suffer. Another thing my body is nearly incapable of doing. But not my mind.”

The pages of his book are beginning to crinkle under the force with which he holds it. A tremble has arrived at them.

“There are many things I am no longer capable of, but caring is not one of them. I care about you, Lett. I care about Rice, too. Even Holly and Glyph and Aunt Gyrdle are among that number. I care about them a lot. When they start looking for ways to make me suffer, their first choice will be those closest to me. Rice, chiefly. But she’s an adult. She’s already sacrificed her safety to be with me, and she knows where this might one day go. You don’t. Your first mistake when it comes to me is thinking that I’m a good person.”

A violent twitch brings his head to face me, and he looks at me, his eyes big and dewy.

I smile mildly. “Do you know what I’ve done to earn my enemies? The kind of hell I’ve put them through?” His eyes say everything. In his mind, I’m a good person because I was there for him when he needed me. He loves me, and so, I am good. Since I have made myself deserving of his love, there is nothing I can do to deserve his apathy. Even now, his ire is tinged in the blood-red spring of love. “I was afraid to tell you that you couldn’t come because I didn’t want you to know what I’ve done to deserve their hatred. Even now, I fear you may come to view me differently because of what I’ve done. It’s as though, deep in my heart, I think that the love you have for me is undeserved. But that’s an insult to you. My cowardice was an insult, too. A very grave one.”

I can’t tell if he’s on the cusp of crying or laughing. Either one would be well-deserved.

…What a rotten word. Deserve. As though anyone deserves anything they have, be it the clothes on their back or their respect. My gaze trails down to Lett’s legs. Unmoving.

Nobody ever gets what they deserve. And still, I wouldn’t call this unfair. We also get so much more than we deserve. Ultimately, I suppose deserving simply doesn’t factor in what we get or don’t get. All we can do is try to be content with the hand we’re dealt. Fold or raise, it’s all up to us. 

Reaching out, I take a hold of his hand. “I’m sorry. I truly am. Sometimes, I try to tell myself I’m sorry for everyone I’ve hurt, but that really isn’t the case. If I didn’t feel anything hurting them, I don’t feel much now, either. But not you. With what I did to you… I’m sorry. It was cowardly of me to not tell you these things in person; to relegate the whole nasty business to a woman I had known all but a day. I hesitate to call it a mistake, because I doubt you took it as such. Is even sorry enough? If I were you, it wouldn’t be. No, in truth, I believe you may only feel properly vindicated if… If I…”

I hesitate to say it. Damn it. Am I really this much of a coward? To the point where I can’t even say the one thing that might undo my mistake? 

…No, more importantly, is this really the right course of action? Oh, yes, I tried to convince Lett not to come, but then he pouted for a month straight so I caved! Like that’s a great basis for a traveling friendship. 

The thing I regret is not that I rejected him, but rather how I went about doing it. I still don’t think that he’s capable of understanding the kind of risk he’d be taking if he went with me. Even if I were to tell him my entire life’s story from beginning to end, he would still view it through rose-tinted glasses. Still justify all of my actions as necessary.

I don’t want him to die. Even if it hurts him. Even if…

My hand curls tightly around his small one. “I’m sorry,” I repeat, pathetically. “I’m sorry.” Not just for being a coward, but for tricking him into loving me, too. 

After a moment, he pulls his hand away, and turns to face the window. It’s begun to snow outside. Little snowflakes are trailing down, slowly, clumsily, like the blown seeds of a fluffy dandelion. “I should, I have to…” I wipe at my nose. The buds are so sensitive at this time of year. They can’t handle too much snow. I’ve been keeping some hay in my inventory for this moment, to put on the flowerbeds, to insulate them from the snow, to keep them warm. “I need to go,” I whimper. He won’t even look at me. 

A flash of something. I remember Moleman, lying in his bed, just a lump with a head. He wouldn’t talk to me either. And Simel, lying in his bed, his feet clean and bandaged but still so maimed and his eyes like inkwells. And now Lett, lying in his bed, his legs bony and knotted. None of them would talk to me. None of them wanted me to visit. And still I did. And still, I held their hands, and I spoke to them, and I tended to them, because I valued their lives more than their happiness.

Was it selfish of me to force them to live? Even now, do they only live for my sake?

Am I afraid that if they die, there will be no one left to receive my love?

In a sudden fright, I rise to my feet, staggering a little. I try to say some variant of goodbye but instead I say “Sorry,” again, “Sorry,” and then another time, “Sorry,” as though the word might work if I say it enough times but it doesn’t. As though it actually meant something. 

But it’s just a word, and I’m just me. 

Without finding the strength to say goodbye or even see you later, I stumble out of the door, closing it behind me. 

And even though I feel as though the whole world is about to implode around me, with trumpets shrieking and scythes culling heads like grapes, my heart stays ever-silent in my chest, as dead as a miscarriage, apathetic to all the tempests of my whirling mind. Not even my lungs will do me the courtesy of making my emotions physical. As soon as the door is closed and the hallway lies bare before me, I cease my breathing. Unless I want to talk, there is no need to breathe.

I am denied the relief of hyperventilating, of my heart beating faster than a sprinting hare’s. With my body dead, unable to voice my mind’s upset, my mind soon catches up to everything, and heeding what my body is telling me, I calm down. My body isn’t upset, so neither is my head.

I’m calm, and I hate it. Desperately, I try to keep my grip on the horror of everything, on the paralyzing memories of Moleman and Simel, on the inhumanness of my body and its terrible, terrible implications, but… Like sand, it slips out of my grip. 

I’m not upset. I’m not even sad. I can’t even bring myself to feel unhappy about the sheer relief that washes over me now that it’s all done and I don’t have to worry about it anymore.

I tried my best, and I hate that this is all I get for it. Even worse, I hate that I’m satisfied with having said my piece. It means whatever happens now isn’t on me.

…What a rotten way to think.