I am damaged. Far too damaged.
He stares at his bloodied hands. His eyes are unfocused and Veronica realizes once again that he sees something she cannot, that he is driven by a force that is not of this world, something that is not real. Well. The reality of it is not subject to her belief.
But you're not beyond repair.
His voice shakes and he looks up at her, his eyes wild with this burning sort of light that Veronica would not call fire. It's like a sparking wire. It is a light that is twitching and spastic and reaching, reaching, reaching towards her. She doesn't realize he's wrapped his arms around her until she's breathing in his scent. The smell of cigarette smoke and apples that's buried under the layers of iron-scented blood and broken and bitter and boy. A boy of only seventeen.
Stick around here, make things better.
She doesn't realize he's crying until the tears are staining his cheek, until those tears stain the back of her shirt, stain her skin, stain her soul. It's acid and salve at the same time, burning into her and healing and breaking and she can't think straight. All that exists in this world are her, him, and the bomb between them.
'Cause you beat me fair and square.
She doesn't realize he's smiling until he pulls away and looks at her. That smile. That damned smile, that wonderful grin, that manic quirk in the corner of his lips that brought them here in the first place, brought them funerals and slushies. Love and god and chaos. It's a bloody grin. It's a broken one.
Please stand back now.
And she doesn't realize that he's taken the bomb from her hands until he's already done it, already stumbled backwards, fingers tightening and loosening, his grip unsure and wavering. He looks scared, but not of the bomb. She doesn't know what's scaring him. She can't even begin to fathom because she keeps getting lost in the youth in his cheeks, and the strength in his arms and he's too young, they're all too damn young for this bullshit!
Little further. Don't know what this thing will do.
She hadn't heard his initial request, only his voice, with that twanging cadence it had, drawing and pulling words out slowly but surely, the way a child would drag a blanket across the floor. Stumbling but determined. Slow but sure. She staggers backwards a bit.
Hope you'll miss me.
She will. She'll miss him like hell, even though he's everything that hurts her. Everything that keeps her up at night, tossing and turning, attempting to figure out how to live with herself and the truth of all she's done. He's everything that makes her wretch over the toilet for hours on end because the guilt has decided that there is no room for food, decided that she will sustain herself on the blood on her hands.
But...he's also everything that keeps her up at night, daydreaming about the possibilities of a future, a future where they're together. A future with a white picket fence and a dog and lazy sunday mornings and fancy dinner parties with red wine staining their teeth. He's everything.
Wish you'd kiss me.
Her eyes fall to his lips, cracked and peeling and pulled into this grotesque grin as he tries to keep the tears at bay.
Then you'd know I worship you.
He gazes upon her as though she is the only thing worth seeing, as though he has been privy to something no one else every has, or ever will. He stares at her as if he is looking upon the face of god, of light, of hope, of all that is right within the world and it drains her. She is angelic. She has deemed him worthy.
I'll trade my life for yours.
The fact that he would do so without hesitation, the fact that he is doing so at this very moment, cradling a harbinger of death in his broken arms is no longer beautiful. It is not a pretty tragedy, it's not sweet, or noble or chivalrous. It's insane! It's obsessive and how could she not see it before! Had she truly been so blind? She's shaking now too, shaking as the realization of truth fills her and pours forth in a sudden, gasping sob.
And when I disappear, clean up the mess down here.
He's on his knees, and the bomb is cradled in his arms like a child but far too loosely for something so delicate and precious and unpredictable.
"Our love is god..."
She took a step back, almost without meaning to. But she did mean to. The movement was deliberate. Because suddenly, though he is still young he becomes something else entirely. He is no longer the boy she flirted with in a Seven Eleven, he hasn't been such for a very long time. He has become something else entirely, something built of shadows and tears, something frozen and diseased, the black blood of chaos filing his veins, replacing the life blood within him. He lurches toward her, a sudden spasm of movement that seems to be entirely out of his control. That seems to be the work of the monster she has created.
"Our love is god..."
Another step backwards. Another spasm, another shaking and gasping jolt forward.
"Our love is god..."
She wants to scream. She wants to screech and yell because they are not gods! What they have or had...dammit she can't even form the words in her mind! She wants to be angry with him! She wants to slap him across the face, snap him out of.. Out of whatever this is! She wants to throw the bomb a million miles away and pull him to her, this boy, this seventeen-year-old- This kid! He's a kid! They're kids, not gods. They are nothing more than children and she wants to say that but the words won't come out. Nothing will. Just the tears that continue to roll down her face. She wonders vaguely if they will ever stop.
"Say hi to God."