I remember my last glimpse of you. You were so tired. You were soaked in the blood of our enemies, and you were so damn tired it broke my heart to look at you.
You told me that you loved me. Then you told me to leave, that you needed to know that someone would get out alive. You had no right! No right to ask me to live for you. Not when you went and died for all of them! You could have lived. You could have lived for me, and we would have been happy. For a time.
In my dreams you come to me victorious and alive, and we laugh and toast victory and I wash the blood from you and we are both safe. Safe and beloved and unharmed. And your hands are soft, on my face, on my body. I'm falling into you and I'm losing myself and I hardly care, because in your hands is the safest place I can be.
And for a single shining moment I wake up and think I will turn my head to see you. Asleep and unharmed and safe by my side.
And for a single moment, I am content.
And I turn my head.
You're never there. You never were. You never will be again.
Those are the days I take the pistol off my bedside table. Your pistol, or one of them – you had more pistols than many women had handbags. It's sleek and reassuring in my hand, and I know that when missing you gets too much, this pistol will be my salvation.
One day, maybe not soon, I'll take that gun and paint the walls with its help.
And everything will be quiet, and maybe I'll find you. Maybe we'll have that toast after all.