I hadn't expected this, but I should have known it was coming. Now that the consequences had become so blunt, I realize how rash I had been. Somehow I had gotten sucked into an idealistic point of view. Somehow everything had become distorted. Instead of seeing life as it was, my mind had twisted everything I viewed until happy sunshine was dancing across its surface. Everything had been happy.
How could I have been so stupid?
Security. That's all it had ever been. SECURITY!
My breathing sped up as if I had yelled the word instead of only thinking of it.
That's what they had always been for me. The insurance girls had become my security—somewhere I could rest my head. They were people who listened to me, even when I wasn't talking. I let that home-like feeling settle in me, because it felt good. But the reason it had felt so good was because… it didn't belong to me. Security was not my territory. It was my job to supply it.
I had failed again.
Knives' cold eyes were burning into me from across the table. Neither of us was sitting at it. It rested in-between us. His blue eyes looked at me calmly. No one spoke.
I should have known our relationship was a mistake, but for some reason I didn't pick it up this time. I actually believed we had been safe.
Stupid.
When I had returned with Knives (after defeating him), everything went well. Now that I was looking back on it, the last few months had been completely uncanny, too perfect.
I fell too fast into emotions that had been locked up in me for so long. She had insisted the whole procedure was fine, because she loved me. I still remember her words, the blush across her cheeks.
-
"It's just I…"
Here she paused.
"I…"
Her dark eyes looked up at me and then darted away again.
"I'm in love with you… Vash"
I told myself I wouldn't be surprised. I had been suspicious of this, but once the words filled the otherwise silent air, surprise leapt on me.
-
In the kitchen, Knives held the gun in his hand awkwardly as if debating whether to lower it or raise it up to my stinging eyes.
My heart was burning, but not as it had several months ago, not as it had last night. This burning wasn't like fire. It was like acid, eating away my flesh and organs while I was still alive. I was frozen with my feet on the kitchen floor.
-
She was afraid to look at me then. She had been anticipating this moment for so long, but she had never been able to pinpoint my reaction in the anticipation.
When I put my hands on her face, her large eyes looked up at me. They disappeared. Everything went dark, because I closed my eyes and lowered my head.
-
Knives was still staring at me, waiting for me to speak, waiting for me to yell. He was waiting to see my reaction to what he had done. Just like those words uttered by Meryl months ago, I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was.
I heard the clock ticking just above the kitchen sink.
"It was logic." Knives slit apart the silence.
-
That's when my judgment slipped. I could pinpoint the moment now. I forgot about all of my fears that night. Everything felt perfect when we kissed, like the moment had been just out of my grasp and I had finally caught it. I felt elated.
-
"How did you find out about it?" I asked.
This wasn't the question my brother had anticipated. He was waiting for me to shout "why". He was waiting for me to demand an explanation. But I didn't need one. After over 130 years, I knew how his brain worked. I knew exactly why he had done what he did.
"The other spider," he replied icily.
Millie? I thought. She must never know. She would never live another day if she knew she had played a part in this outcome.
-
Everything began snowballing after that, and I was glad about it. We always spoke alone in town once Knives gained consciousness. I wouldn't risk facing his judgment until I knew where he stood.
But he had always been a better liar than me.
Meryl didn't mind our secrets at all. She was one person that completely understood my circumstances.
-
Knives and I could have talked about our differences, but that would have been too simple. Why would he waste so much time talking when he could eradicate the problem when I wasn't looking?
I didn't dare look at the kitchen table yet… not yet.
"You fooled me again," I admitted.
-
I got lost in her. Life wasn't better, I just saw it as better because it had become tainted, beautifully tainted. I liked it like that. I felt alive and safe. I felt secure.
I was so nervous last night when I asked the question, when I gave Meryl the ring. My view was so obscured.
"You have always been too trusting," Knives answered.
I wanted to look away from his blaring eyes. My sight slipped too low. The kitchen table was in focus now and I felt my heart get stuck in my throat. One occupant sat at it. Her face was covered by her dark hair as her head rested gently on the table's surface. Her left arm was extended over the corner, causing her limp wrist to rest her left fingers in the still air. Red liquid was spreading dangerously across the shinning table surface, growing closer to the edge.
How had it happened?
I had forgotten to listen again. Knives didn't speak to me, and I wasn't listening.
My heart propelled in speed and my eyes began to sting again.
He had shot her. Meryl was dead.