Epilogue
It's morning. Glaring sunlight beats through the open window, provoking the pounding of my headache, urging my brain to pummel itself harder against the inside my skull. I am hungover but the body beside mine is warm, slender but fed, and very much there. He isn't a wraithlike pixie who after his messy release will leave me stranded on the bathroom floor, filthy with his scent. He is a lover, in ways both passionate and innocent. He is not riddled with the stings of needles but rather spotted with the marks of my teeth and lips. He is mine, not the whore of his addictions. He is here and will be here tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.
I am hungover and though the sun glowers angrily down at me it is a beautiful day. I gaze back at Sirius, asleep on our bed (how we ended up there I don't know), handsome face serene and innocent, almost foolishly so.
Suddenly I understand why he brought me to that club last nigh. I know why he urged me onto the dance floor, frolicking with these hollow, painted shells. He wanted me to see the difference, the difference between our love and theirs.
He's a devil, he's a hellion. He'll consort with these people but he isn't one of them. He'll dance with them and for a while be immersed in their flimsily gaudy world. And he isn't one of them because of me. Because of my love. Our love.
And then I walk to kitchen to make us breakfast. He'll eagerly drink the coffee and, famished, he will devour the toast. But he'll turn away from the eggs though, turn away from those empty egg shells of people, painted like garish Easter eggs. Sirius doesn't like eggs. Sirius has never liked eggs.
Beta'd by Olivia who,
Deserves in lieu
Of thunderous applause
Or even mention in this humble clause
A deft flick of my middle finger
And a scathing look that does linger.
Fin