"How could you love me when you let me go through all that with Katie?" Aaron pumped disbelievingly.
Frankly, I did not know what to reply. After Katie's death, I could not sleep for days, often haunted by the nightmares that her demise had brought about. I felt so lost like as if how I was abandoned in the forest when young. I fought for days for my survival in the cold and eerie darkness myself.
Aaron was way worse than me. He self-harmed because of that incident, or rather, because of my reckless action. He was crestfallen after that and constantly ran himself until he dropped, to torture himself physically, and I was too powerless and gutless to stop him.
"All that guilt. All that pain."
I was conscience-stricken, and I admitted it. But my feelings were above Aaron's at least three notches because he would be the one taking the fall if the police did unravel anything related to that incident. I selfishly thought Aaron would easily forget and disregard this issue, but I was deadly fallacious. His self-harming was entirely my fault because I manipulated him to think that he killed Katie so that I would feel better about myself.
"And you think that I didn't feel any of that?" I replied with a relentless front.
"No."
"Then you are wrong. I told you, I told you, I told YOU I loved her once and it was an accident," I was getting irritated, emphasising my point each time I repeated by dauntingly bellowing louder and louder.
My past memories came flooding back into my mind, I saw mentally how Katie and I went to the theme park and had a whale of a time together, how we were so keen on deciding that we will name our future child, "Anthonie," if it was a male and, "Grace," if it was otherwise, or even to shift to the countryside to have a tranquil life.
Aaron shook his head as he struggled to not succumb to his emotions or to submit to my yells. I could notice the tears in his eyes as he struggled to keep them in. He was too warm-hearted and loving to label me as a stone-hearted murderer; he was trying so hard to convince himself that he was wrong. But, was he?
"I was responsible. I had to watch her die," I confessed.
At this point, I could feel the guilt kicking in, completely engulfing the leftover of my humanity. My sentiments were in ruins and uncontainable. Everything was imploding and I was crumbling to pieces. The contrition, the remorse, the penitence, it was so overwhelming that I almost could not control it. I recalled that I conceded to it and let it overtake my brain and my body.
Recounting to Aaron about how Katie fell through the shabby floor, about how I decided to relieve some burden by pushing it onto Aaron, about how I miserable I felt when I saw my blood-related brother crying buckets. It was obvious that he felt sorrowful and apologetic to me, but I knew my actions were unredeemable. My blood abruptly ran cold as my hair was shot to its wits' end, trying to regulate my racing mind. I did not even notice that I teared; I felt so 'human'.
"Then I'll make it easy for you, shall I?" He attempted to succour as he fixed his gaze on me.
I looked at him again and witnessed another line of tear flowing out of his right eye. He was gathering all his might and courage to say whatever he would be saying. I genuinely hoped that he would not narrow a conclusive path of his fate.
There was a long pause before he heartbrokenly plastered on a radiant façade.
He lightly smiled and said,
"Kill me."