Last Time
I listen closely as Fausto explains everything. While I feeel like hitting something– anything– when he tells how it was a trick, there is a part of me that knows this is over. We'd never managed to keep the cure from our city, and now we couldn't keep it from ourselves. When he asks for my consent, I nod. He seems almost surprised that I've agreed.
However, when he offers me the syringes, a feeling of doubt overcomes me. I back away, leaving him confused.
"Do you not want to do this?"
I nod. "Just… just give me a moment okay?"
He consented, going a small distance away. Whether he actually understands, or whether it is just one final concession to the "Boss," I don't know.
What I really need to do is think. Unconsciously, my left hand flicks down, pulling my knife from my belt. I exhale softly and place the blade against my skin. But before I can press down, something stops me, and I just stare at my wrist.
Without noticing it, I have chosen the same spot where I first made a cut. True, the scar has long faded, if the skin was not replaced in the surgery, but still, it is the same spot. I just know it.
This time would be utterly different, and yet utterly the same. Instead of the upset bubblehead looking for a way out, it would be the conflicted special about to leave the web of surgery and lies that had dominated her for as long as she could remember.
But that really wasn't what it had been about, was it, Shay?
Where did that thought come from? I glance\ around, almost expecting someone else to be watching, to have said that. But I just sigh, because I know it's true. While it was about the cure, I didn't know until later what I had achieved.
No, that first cut had been all about Tally. It hurt when she told me she'd taken the cure already. It hurt worse once I realized who she'd taken it with. I knew then that I'd lost her. When she'd first turned pretty, I thought I had her. I mean what could be better that being perfect for the rest of your life? Har har. I'd known what was better, and so did she. But still, it hurt. And to know that I meant less to her than Zane, Zane who she barely knew, that was what drove me.
But how quickly we forget. Once I was special, that old desire was back. So I chased her down. Once she was special, I thought, all my troubles would be over. So I ignored everything that told me otherwise. I pretended it was perfect, that I had the power to create my perfect world. But it was never that way, and, I am beginning to realize, will never be that way.
"Boss?" Fausto's voice breaks me out of my reverie. "You ready?"
"I'm almost done," I call back.
I look down at the blade in my hand and sigh. I am sorry that it had to come to this. I had waited, hoped, pretended. But it was all pointless. Tally didn't care. Tally would probably never care, not the way I wanted, no, needed her to. So I must start again. Cut her out of my life, and try to keep it that way.
I press the blade down, and I know instantly that this will be the last time. The pain shoots through me for the briefest moment, heightening my senses, before it fades to a dull ache, leaving me feeling distant. I stare at the mark without wincing, sheathing my knife. I will take the cure now. In a few days, maybe a week at most, they will do another operation to "deweaponize" my body. I hope that they will leave me this one small scar. To remember.