The Perfect Ending.
"I wish you could live with me forever. Just the two of us."
The two of us, and no one else. It was a farfetched fantasy that fed off of everything he was. A childhood of deceit—one that only the sun setting above the endless waves of the ocean could calm. An adolescence of belonging, and of remembering that which he'd almost lost. An adulthood of planning, of love and of fabricating his dreams, and then the emptiest death one could ever imagine.
That was Henry Dunn in a nutshell. Henry, who carried a name that belonged not to him but to a pair of miserable, worthless vermin, had redeemed his crimes by living a life so terrible that it was criminal in and of itself.
Henry Dunn, who had done everything in his power to retreat to the innocence of his childhood and to spend the rest of his life with the only person who'd never done him wrong, went in vain.
The last words spoken by him. The last breaths taken by him. His ideas. His sacrifices. His memories.
He lost sight of the last hints of sunlight as his mind went black. He didn't feel any physical pain. He was not allowed to. His life was so close to being perfect that it had to be perfect. He'd sit down at the table as he did every morning, and Abby would be at his side. He'd take a sip from his mug of coffee, and they'd make small talk. "It hasn't rained here in a long time, so this is a nice change," or, "Have you ever thought about having children?"
Small talk. The smiles flashed between them would be genuine, just like when they were children. They would be the perfect balance. Abby would never need another man in her life. She would never need anyone but him.
Just the two of us. Forever.
Then, they would die together. A sort of cliché. Hand in hand, or peacefully while sleeping in their shared bed. And as they breathed their final breaths, they would whisper to one another, "I love you," and the perfect world would come to a perfect ending.
The painful, regretful look in Abby's eyes brought Henry back to reality for long enough—just long enough.
A sigh. "I love you."
The perfect ending.