Disclaimer: I do not own any of this. It all belongs to other people. So please don't sue.
Words That Haunt
The best kind of promise is the one you can't keep.
I remember her smile, her arms wrapping themselves around me. You'd really break your promise to my father for me, she asked. I nodded. How could I not? I loved her. I wanted nothing more than to be with her. She'd risked neck and limb to make that serum to save countless people. She looked on me with understanding. She knew who I was but it didn't change how she acted around me. She and I were two sides of the same coin. We would be together forever.
The best kind of promise is the one you can't keep.
She's eighteen. Eighteen! She shouldn't be cold. She shouldn't be stiff. She shouldn't be this frozen thing in my arms, never to move again. I want to shake her. I want to scream. I want to shout her name at the top of my lungs. I want to follow her into oblivion. But all that comes out is a mantra.
"Gwen. Gwen. Gwen. Gwen." Barely above a whisper. The crowd is drawing nearer. I hear sirens in the distance. I don't want to let her body go. I want to stay here, find some way to correct my mistake. But I will have to let go. I need to move. The police won't ask questions. They'll just assume.
And they would be right. I did kill her. In one moment of miscalculation, I snapped her neck. I can still see her head, flinging back, the webbing snapping as it grabbed her. I killed her. I killed her. I killed her. Just like I killed my Uncle Ben.
The best kind of promise is the one you can't keep.
I am running over buildings. The words haunting me. Captain Stacey was right. The ones we love will always pay the ultimate price. If only I had listened, she would still be alive. If I had not broken a simple promise, I would see her smiling face in class tomorrow.
I want to run until I die. I want to run around the sun and reverse this awful course that is my life. I want to bring them all back. The three people I failed to save. The three people who meant the most. The three people who lie cold in the ground. My words of a year ago laugh at me.
The best kind of promise is the one you can't keep.
They are my new mantra. My new guiding principle. If I hadn't been so sure, so sure I could protect her, that nothing would go wrong, this would never have happened. Yet, I couldn't even save her father. Why should I have thought that I could save her? The blood of the Stacey family stained my hands.
The best kind of promise is the one you can't keep.
And now she has paid the ultimate price for a boy never truly worthy of her. I break down on top of the highest building, tears falling down my hidden face. It should never have been like this. It should never have come to this. It should never have been her.
The best kind of promise is the one you can't keep.