I Forgot
Disclaimer: I don't own Cowboy Bebop.
I forgot. I forgot that he would kill me if he every found out. I forgot how loose I got when I took red eye. I forgot how much he loved me and how much he hated me. I forgot how heartless he could be, and most of all, I forgot how afraid he was of betrayal.
When I first started seeing Spike I didn't think. I just went with Spike. I did it because I wanted to feel something more than an icy numbness. Spike was so alive. Spike was so imperfect. He gave me everything that Vicious couldn't. He gave me warmth and hope and uncertainty and most of all he gave me back that feeling of knowing you're alive, and that anything, at any one moment, could happen.
Vicious couldn't give these things to me because he couldn't give these things to himself. Vicious was dead on the inside, and I went to him knowing that but thinking that was what I needed. How could I have been so wrong? I needed life not death, and Vicious could only give me what he knew. And for a while that bittersweet numbness, that sweet smell of decay, that cool cold passion was what I craved, but the craving didn't last, and before I knew it I wanted to once again be alive.
I don't know when I lost it, when I just couldn't hide it anymore. Maybe it was that night. The night Vicious finally got me to take red eye. I must have called out Spike's name while I was in the heat of the moment, when all conscience thought had left me, and I could only feel. Maybe that's how he knew, or maybe it was just the fact that he seemed to know me more than I know myself. That everything I said and did he seemed to know a reason for, even if I couldn't find the reason myself. He was always right about me. Maybe that's how he knew. Or perhaps he could smell it on me. Perhaps he could smell Spike's musky scent attached to my skin. Maybe he could taste it, like every time we kissed he could taste the strange tobacco and warm vanilla taste that accompanied Spike's mouth.
I'll never know how he found out. And really, now, I don't care. It's that he found out that makes the difference. It's that one day I came home from work and I found myself staring down the barrel of his gun. His usually calm grey eyes, black with maddening rage. He looked so demonic, and it was at that moment that I realized my mistake. Vicious hadn't been dead on the inside, only sleeping. His soul waiting for a moment to erupt and become alive once again, I gave it the bust it needed.
He calmly told me to sit down, his voice collected and clear. I wanted to ask how he knew, why he even cared, but instead I just kept my mouth shut, and prayed to the God I no longer believed in that he didn't shot the gun. He didn't shot that gun, but he may as well have, my life still ended. The life I had come to know and be familiar with ended that day. The new life I had scraped up didn't last too long either.
I forgot. I forgot that I couldn't have two things at once. I forgot that not everyone gets what they want. I forgot that life wasn't fair. I forgot that people don't care enough to try to understand. I should have remembered, but I didn't. It was stupid, irresponsible, and just plain suicidal, but it wasn't wrong. Wanting Spike that much wasn't wrong, was it?
If loving you is wrong then I don't wanna be right. It was good in theory, wasn't it cowgirl?