Five.v2

Sunrise brought no comfort, but it did take my tired eyes off the clock. The sun had risen without Sophie, but how could it? How could birds sing outside the window like it was any other day? How could the world be callous enough to go on, as if this weren’t the worst day of my life? How could it feel like the end of everything if it wasn’t?

My phone had continued to go off all night, it seemed, but only now did I look to see why: several texts from Miriam, a few calls from her as well; loads of calls from Henry; and a message from a number I didn’t know, in a text conversation that couldn’t be replied to:


Meeting tonight. 20:00, City Hall basement. Enter through the back.


My head tipped backwards with the pinch between my shoulders as I stared annoyed up at the ceiling. Now? Today? I hadn’t gotten one of these in months, but they had the audacity to do it today?

With a breath, I dialed Miriam. It was only when she answered groggily that I realized how early it must be.

“Did you get the notice?” I asked without apology, and Miriam remained silent for a moment as she undoubtedly checked.

“Oh shit,” she finally responded, sounding fully alert now. “What’s happened?”

“I thought you’d know. You go to the monthly things, don’t you?”

My eyes returned to the clock as I fought to ground myself in the conversation, to not let my mind drift to anything that would give me away.

“Not recently,” she confessed, almost apologetically. “I can be at the office in a few.”

The office. Henry. Fuck.

“No,” I answered curtly, making my mind as I focused in on the clock’s second hand. “I’m not going in.”

“Oh?” she responded nearly instantly. She paused for me to continue, but what was there to say?

“Are you feeling okay?” she finally asked.

What kind of a question was that? And what could I say? Miriam couldn’t possibly understand how I felt. I didn’t even understand how I felt. What the fuck are you supposed to do when you get so caught up in a human that you would give anything to die with them?

“Henry broke our agreement,” I said instead without realizing I had even formulated the words. “He took more than his cut last night, and now I don’t have mine or yours. I may have broken the machine. I don’t remember.”

Miriam gasped, but her voice remained level when she spoke again: “Stay home,” she reasoned, “and I’ll call you later. I’ve got to get ready for work.”

“Miriam—” I tried to stop her. Henry wasn’t safe. But she didn’t give me the chance.

“I’ll call you later, Collin,” she decided, and the call ended.

My breath caught in my throat as I brought my phone to my lap, alone once again. How could she do this? She’s going to work? After all the shit she’s given me about being alone with Henry, I tell her he’s betrayed us, and her response is to run right to him? What about me? What the fuck was I supposed to do now?

I had hoped dawn would bring answers, explanations, instructions—yet here I was, still watching the clock. After all my time staring, the hour hand moved as fluidly and conspicuously as the second hand as it crept across the clock’s face, edging closer and closer to the next hour with every passing instant.

Only one person in my professional life had ever known Sophie. She had spent time with her too, between scores or when she didn’t want to scrounge her own dinner. And she had warned me not to get attached to someone I would inevitably outlive. But I had gotten attached, and I think I remember she had too, so perhaps…

I zipped my coat as I stood, shoes still on from the night before. Finally, I grabbed a cigarette from my pocket and went to light it immediately but stopped—Sophie hated when I smoked in the house.

Did that matter anymore? I retrieved my phone from the couch and briefly considered calling ahead, but I didn’t. I hadn’t spoken to my friend since she had left Henry’s a year ago, and now I owed her more than just a phone call.


“Lily,” I half-chuckled when the haggard version of my old friend opened her door. Her human facade had begun to fail her significantly, but not yet completely, and I still recognized who she used to be when I had known her. Though she still maintained the shape and semblance of the woman I remembered, she was now covered in a thick fur, and her nose was longer, nearing a muzzle now. Times were hard.

“Collin?” she asked incredulously, in a gravelly whisper, the concern in her voice clear as she gripped the edge of the door with her clawed hand. Her canines peaked out from behind her black lips. “What are you doing here?”

I pushed through the opening to hug her, though physical contact had never been our norm, and it clearly took her by surprise. It was just so nice being washed in the fondness of my old friend’s company. “Holy shit, I’ve missed you, Lee.”

She was silent. I broke the embrace easily, since she hadn’t returned it, and eyed my former companion as she stared through me. She looked at me as if I were a ghost. Her nails dug lightly into the door as she clutched it tighter, the sound of her scraping the wood causing my back to straighten. I wasn’t welcome.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, suddenly unsettled where I stood before her. The inside of her apartment was dark, the windows clearly covered, with the only light emitting from a blaring television somewhere in the adjacent room. “Lily?”

“Why are you here?” she demanded, her tone changing to one of defense, her voice underlined with an uncertain growl. “What do you want?”

“Lily,” I started again, incredulous. It had been a year, sure, but what had changed? “I wanted to see you.”

“Now?” she demanded still, her eyes piercing. Her fur began bustling at the nape of her neck, and I took a step backward. “Why now?”

My stomach knotted. Why not now? Were we not as close as I had thought? Did I really have no one?

“Sophie died,” I blurted desperately, suddenly numb where I stood.

Lily’s fur seemed to settle, but she still bore a snarl. “You need to go,” she insisted, her voice firm. “You can’t be seen here.”

“Lily—”

But her door slammed, and I stood on the wrong side of it, dumbfounded. Can’t be seen by who? Had her physical changes altered her personality as well? Or was she just finished with me after a year of silence? I had thought she would be pleased to see me, eager to share in my pain, and yet here I stood, rejected by the only other person that had ever known my Sophie. The only person that could possibly understand how devastated I was without her. And she didn’t care at all? I tell her my world is shattered, and she tells me I need to go? What had changed so drastically between us since she signed her loan agreement and we said our goodbyes?

My phone vibrated in my pocket then, and I answered it without thinking.

“Collin,” that familiar, seductive voice teased in my ear. “Can we meet? I’ve got your cut.”

“Where?” I finally tore myself from Lily’s door. I rubbed the back of my neck as I started down the street, assessing where exactly I was in the brighter light of morning.

“Where are you?” she asked, and when I rattled off the intersection, she paused. “What are you doing on that side of town?”

I was taken a bit aback by her question; though it wasn’t common to go into the lycanthropes’ side of the city unless I was collecting, I had gone to Lily’s many times before without issue. For Miriam, though, who had never collected from one of those marks, and had never met Lily, it was probably forbidden territory all together.

“It doesn’t matter,” I lied as I tried to shrug off the encounter with Lily, eager instead for Miriam’s promised fix. If anything could make me feel normal right now, it would be glow.

“Okay…” she seemed put off by my deflection, but only temporarily. Her next words were back to her unintentionally sultry usual: “Just meet me at my place. Have you eaten? I can grab something fast on the way.”

“I haven’t.”

She didn’t ask for my order. Instead, she gave me an address and purred a ‘see you soon.’ My heart thudded, but I shook the thought from my head as I returned my phone to my pocket.

Sounds like love to me, the bartender had said. I sucked my teeth and dismissed that thought, too. I had never loved anyone, Henry’s secretary least of all. I wasn’t even confident I was capable of the emotion anymore, or ever. If I hadn’t loved Sophie, how did anyone else stand a chance?

I wandered the busy streets, unimpressed with the morning traffic. I never had gotten the hang of driving myself; it felt like such a hindrance versus feeling your environment all around you, hearing the fauna and smelling the flora, able to react in an instant and have your body react with you. The sounds of alternating horns and the collective stench of exhaust reinforced my disdain.

But that had been the tradeoff for living in the city. More traffic meant higher population density, which ensured greater opportunities for stealth harvesting. You’d think, after several decades, I’d be used to it, but I wasn’t. Sophie had loved everything about the city, and for the longest time, that was enough for me to tolerate it. But now? Every breath it breathed reeked of her, and it choked me.

A swallow attempted to dismiss her ghost from my mind. Immediately, though, it was replaced by another, as my mind drifted to the woman I had betrayed first, and the marital home we had shared. It had been small: a single bedroom separated from an all-purpose living space that had included the hearth and table. The entirety of that home could have fit within Sophie’s living room, but it had been perfect for us back then.

I could still remember the expression on my wife’s face when I brought her inside for the first time, though her features had long been lost from my memory. I had purchased the home the day before our wedding and welcomed her to it immediately following the ceremony. The way she had looked at me, so proud of me, like no one ever had before—my stomach knotted now. Had I ever given her such a look? She had been a wonderful wife, with the house always tidy and the hearth always aglow with some sort of meal or treat. There was always food on the table when I came home, regardless of how much money we had at any given time. She ensured my dollars stretched, even when I was spending my time and coin elsewhere.

The smell of her breads filled my nostrils, a memory I held even now. I had never tasted anything as delicious as my wife’s cooking, and I cringed now as I remembered the end, where her plates for me went cold in my absence, eventually discarded as I started spending evenings, weekends, weeks away without notice.

As I crossed through an intersection with the light, I tried to remember what she looked like. I had rarely looked at her, not out of malice but instead of mere disinterest. She had been kind and attentive, and I was selfish and gluttonous. Though I had forgotten her face, I remembered her as plain—short, but not too stout; intelligent enough, but not very pretty; but doting, all the same.

And I wondered how she would look at me know, if she saw me, so different from what I was when I was hers—my skin pallid, rather than bronzed by my work outdoors; my hair darker, no longer sun-bleached the color of sand; my soul blackened, unable to enjoy the minutia of the day, as I had back then. Would she recognize me? Would I recognize myself?

A chill startled me from my mind, and my shoulders shuddered as it tore through me. I saw then the street Miriam had relayed, and my eyes scanned the building numbers to dictate my next turn. When I finally reached the tall building at the end of the street, I found and pressed her apartment number, unsure if she had been able to make it before me in the traffic. A harsh buzz affirmed that she had, and the door clicked as it unlocked for me.

The ascent was a long one, but I forgot it as soon as I smelled her chosen takeout. Chinese at this hour? Still, my mouth watered, and I made quick work of the final flight of stairs.

Miriam’s door was open before I reached it. She leaned against the doorframe; her curves accentuated with the angle. An oyster pail rested in the palm of her hand, and her talented fingers perched her chopsticks near her face as she accepted and slurped a long noodle. Finally, she eyed me, blushing slightly as her tongue traced her lips for sauce.

“Finally,” she teased, as if she had been waiting forever, though she couldn’t possibly have arrived long before me. “I was about to poach yours.”

“Mine?” I inquired, ever curious what she would have come up with for me when we had never so much as shared a meal.

“Chicken fried rice—the shredded kind, not the slices—with a side of spring rolls, no sauce.”

I smirked and raised my brow. “Easy guess.”

She winked her dismissal and straightened her back to the doorframe, allowing me past her. I sized up her place as she closed the door. Her living room and kitchen were combined, but sizeable together. There was a small hall off the corner of the room, next to a floor-to-ceiling window that spanned nearly the entire breadth of the wall. Her furniture was tidy, but none of it looked new; she seemed a sucker for second hand, much like Sophie had been. Thinking of Miriam rummaging in a flea market alongside Sophie was as endearing as it was heartbreaking. Every one of us managed to hang on to a part of our humanity, regardless of how far removed we were from it now.

The apartment was neat, but little bits of clutter revealed it to be lived in: a pair of heels sat haphazardly next to the table; a small stack of books piled near her TV stand; embroidery peeked out from a basket next to a high-backed armchair in the center of the room. It was hard to imagine Miriam having hobbies or interests, or even existing outside of work and dates, but here was the proof.

“Stop assessing me,” she teased, her breath tickling my ear from behind. “I’ve barely been here a year.”

As I turned to size up Miriam again, she lowered from her tip toes back onto the carpet, meal still firmly in-hand. It was odd seeing her without her heels. Though she were only a few inches shorter without them, the slight uptick of her chin to meet my gaze had shifted our dynamic entirely. Her presence was grander than her inches, and though she looked up at me as if I were in control, I felt her pulling the strings within me.

She sat her food down on the table, her expression both playful and curious as she eyed me. “What’s going on with you?”

My heart thudded with the upturned corners of her mouth. There was something so intimate about being in Miriam’s home, seeing her humanity, a secret her who curled up barefoot in a tall chair with an old book, rather than dressed to the nines to pick up someone’s husband or wife. It felt like I was violating her privacy seeing her this way.

Her face fell with my silence. She closed the gap between us, eyeing me carefully as I stayed planted, words escaping me. “Collin, did you even sleep?” She reached to touch my cheek, but I recoiled before she could linger. My face seared, her touch electric, and I blinked slowly to regain myself.

“Can we just do the transfer?” I growled, overwhelmed. The longer I stood in this apartment, the more I felt like I understood Miriam, and the less I felt she understood me.

Her nose crinkled with my curtness, but she kept her annoyance to herself. “Okay.”

Without looking at me again, Miriam started toward the corner hallway, and I followed, lagging several steps behind. I didn’t know what to expect of her room, but the simplicity of her bedframe, the turned down sheets, and the patchwork quilt atop it all took me by surprise. It was cozy and inviting, with a whicker laundry basket in the far corner and a small stereo on her dresser. It wasn’t obvious even in her most intimate space that she lived as promiscuously as she did.

“I’ve never been harvested from before, but I assume…” she gestured to the bed, and I found myself already undressing, tugging my shoes off as soon as my jacket hit the floor.

“Yeah, I know what I’m doing,” I reminded her, losing my patience with her by the second, though I wasn’t exactly sure why. The weight of Sophie lingered between us, threatening to swallow me whole, and she had yet to acknowledge it. Part of me was grateful she didn’t know, but the other felt betrayed by her ignorance.

It remained quiet as we continued to undress, and I found myself falling into my usual routine, treating this, and her, like any mark. Things felt sterile, even as I sat on the edge of her bed. She stood before me, bared to me, but I couldn’t bring myself to look. Instead, I situated into the bed, and she followed. Still, my heart fluttered with her proximity, her nudity, her willingness to expose herself to me in such a way. And that was different. She didn’t cover herself, or remain partially clothed, and she didn’t avoid looking at me. Instead, her eyes consumed me as she perched atop me, but her uncertainty-tinged expression betrayed her. She was playing her part, making the moves, but they were awkward for her, too. Part of her own ritual, but also not.

Miriam seemed lost as to what came next, as I now realized her routine involved much more intimacy than mine, intimacy I wasn’t willing to receive or reciprocate. Instead, I placed my hands on each of her hips, positioning her where I wanted, to get things started before they drew out too long.

As the transfer commenced, Miriam’s natural pull engaged, and for a moment, I was lost in it. Uninhibited by Henry’s machine, I could feel the clarity of her, and I wanted to drown in it.

“Collin,” she coaxed, and I engaged against her, her reminder sobering. It took continuous, conscious resisting to withstand her pull, and even more effort to overcome it. Still, I focused, demanding mine overpower hers.

Though her brow furrowed initially, clearly unfamiliar with the sensation, she relented. She closed her eyes as she succumbed to me and seemed to relax into the process.

Miriam was beautiful, and it was obvious even now, despite my initial attempts to ignore her. She held herself with dignity, even as she rotated her hips atop mine. I was impressed with the trust she was able to put into me, for me to take only what she afforded me, the same trust I had extended to her regularly across our time together.

As her eyes reopened, her lips parted, and I wanted to swallow the breath she exhaled, the one I hadn’t realized she was holding. And though her body was luxurious, enough to make any man lust, it was the curiosity behind her eyes that intoxicated me now. Had she ever been with an incubus?

A smirk teased the corners of her mouth, and I felt suddenly self-conscious.

“You’re thinking too much,” she chastised with a breathy exhale as she reached to stroke my cheek, and this time I didn’t pull away from her. It was only then the realization hit: she could hear everything within me.

Miriam stifled a giggle as she reassuringly cradled my cheek in her delicate fingers, but my stomach was already in knots. I had lost track of the count completely, focused only on my embarrassment, careless enough to think of Miriam while she could hear my thoughts. And now, realizing she could hear me forced me to think of all the things I didn’t want her to know, like Lily, like Sophie—

I pulled from beneath Miriam, mortified. I quickly shifted to sit back from her, my face hot.

“You’re usually so exhausted, with the machine,” she tugged the quilt to her chest as she sat back on her heels, a playful, but hesitant, grin on her face. “It took me by surprise to hear how your thoughts race. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“Stop,” I insisted, willing myself to be anywhere else but in this conversation, anywhere but her bed, with anyone other than her.

“You didn’t get your full cut,” she offered apologetically, but I couldn’t think of anything but my burning cheeks.

I raised my hands to my face, willing myself to disappear behind them. There was nowhere to escape other than the cold wood of Miriam’s footboard, and it was against that cold wood that I now rested, anxious thoughts flooding my mind. I was so used to ignoring the thoughts of my marks that listening to Miriam hadn’t even crossed my mind. I felt betrayed she had thought to do so.

“I’m sorry.” She twisted the quilt around her as she stood, securing it as she made for the door. Her tone was no longer playful, instead remorseful. “Come eat when you’re ready.”

Her shutting the door behind her was both relieving and exasperatingly lonely. I took a moment to suppress my frustration before dressing. I again assessed the room around me. I never imagined myself here, buttoning my shirt next to Miriam’s bed. I never imagined her perfectly pressed clothes in a heap on her floor. It was a level of humanity I hadn’t realized she possessed.

When I’d calmed, I returned to the living room, where Miriam sat fully dressed at the table, in the outfit I knew was still crumpled on the floor. I mentally chastised her for wasting her glow—my glow, at this point—but I didn’t speak. Instead, I loitered near her armchair, as if I had forgotten my destination.

“Come on,” she coaxed, pushing a chair out from under the table with her foot. “Sit. Eat.”

I avoided looking at her but obeyed, sitting at the pushed-out chair across from her. Chopsticks sat on the unopened oyster pail in front of me, but I instead went for the fork on the table.

It was quiet as I ate and avoided Miriam’s prying eyes. Her curiosity was palpable, but I wouldn’t encourage it, and my heart begged her not to ask.

“What happened with Henry, then?” I forced, feeling her stare still on me.

She laughed a short, beautiful laugh that bordered on devious. The hairs rose on the back of my neck, and I immediately squelched my fondness for her.

“He’s aged a bit in your absence.” Her chopsticks clicked in affirmation, and I imagined the smugness on her face, but still refused to look. She undoubtedly loved having one over on him.

“I take it we’re unemployed?”

“On the contrary,” her flirty tone was as apparent as ever, but the nonchalant inflection proved it unintentional. “When we’re finished with our paid week off, we’ll return to 25% fiscal raises.”

I couldn’t help but smirk at that, prodding my rice with my fork. “Good work.” I finally looked at her, only to see her attempting to suppress a wholehearted smile. Her eyes were so genuinely happy, I found myself lost in them, until she took a deep breath, and I again returned my gaze to my food.

Another silence fell, but this one not nearly as tense. Instead, I felt comfortable in the unassuming apartment, in the company of someone who demanded nothing of me.

“So…did you see Lily?”

I flicked my eyes up to her, surprised at her boldness, but she didn’t seem malicious. “I tried,” I finally conceded. “But she didn’t want to see me.”

“Oh,” her eyes avoided mine, and I wondered if she was jealous of her predecessor. “Can I ask you a question?”

“What?”

There was a pause then, and I grew anxious. We both knew I wasn’t going to like whatever it was she was going to ask. “Lately, you’ve been really…” she took a moment to sip from the glass in front of her, buying herself time. “Really…stressed, whenever you think of…”

I lifted my eyes to hers, fostering a glare I hoped would silence her, but she just took another contemplative breath.

“Who’s Sophie?” Finally, she met my gaze, challenging me in the gentlest way she could. “You just always seem to be so sad about her, especially today.”

My fork clattered to the table before I realized I had dropped it, startling us both. When the pounding of my heart settled and the rush of blood drained from my ears, I had no excuse to offer.

“She was my best friend,” I confided out of nowhere, and the moment the words left my mouth, I was angry at Miriam for them. And yet, I kept speaking, unable to stop the floodgates she had unlocked. “She’s been at my side for 70 years. She welcomed me into her home for decades and she…” I shook my head, willing the outburst to end as quickly as it had begun. “She died.”

Miriam’s face fell. She knew what it felt like; that was obvious in her eyes. She leaned forward in her chair, her hand reaching for my balled fist. At her touch, my fist released, allowing her fingers to curl tenderly around mine. “Collin, I’m sorry.”

Her touch was warm, comforting against my emptiness. I didn’t respond, and could look nowhere but her fingers, but I was so grateful for the act.

Until I wasn’t. Before I knew it, I was to my feet. Miriam might have objected as I exited, she might not have. I couldn’t hear her. I couldn’t hear anything. I was numb and stressed and exhausted, and I wanted to be anywhere but here.

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Sunrise brought no comfort, but it did take my tired eyes off the clock. The sun had risen without Sophie, but how could it?

And we’re back here with this beautiful, provoking piece of imagery: how could the sun rise? Love the continuity between the two chapters. It truly does feel like your world will stay dark in times like this, and this is such an eloquent way of reminding us of that feelign, but also, as I said before, reminding us that the sun WILL rise. I have more to say about this, but in the next quote -->

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How could the world be callous enough to go on, as if this weren’t the worst day of my life?

Okay, so I ADORE how this begins. ADORE IT. Because we can sympathize. We even agree with him. Most of us know what it’s like to feel a loss so great that it completely turns your world upside down, right-side up, then upside down again! It’s such a cold, “callous” feeling that we can certainly agree with.

Then, Col goes on to add, “As if this weren’t the worst day of my life?” and it changes the statement, but not fully. This is so in character for him, and I would say you have no idea, but you do. He’s insufferable in this state. I’m not one of those people who easily empathizes with character’s like Col, but because I’ve grown to know/love him, I do. But he drastically shifts this statement for me with the addition of himself in it. Yes, Col, we agree: how can the sun rise without her and the world go on? How cruel, right? Then, you make it about you, and we sort of recoil. We go, “Wait, this isn’t about you man.” (even though it is). That contrast is sharp, though warranted, and almost unsettling in the way it’s delivered.

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How could it feel like the end of everything if it wasn’t?

More insertion of himself in the loss of Sophie. Don’t get me wrong, I believe anyone would feel this way. It just feels super selfish because we are getting his thoughts, and it makes me want to turn my back on him. It makes me want to kick him in the ass, and that’s the way I would assume you’d want me to feel at this moment. Because, hey Col, it was her time. It was time to let her go, okay? Mourn her, but leave the self-pity in the dark where it belongs. The sun has risen.

I suppose he wouldn’t do that though, would he? Considering he is ate up with all this guilt over TOO many women! Ugh, I still love him, but JFC, I wish Mir was here to snap him out of it in that sweet, endearing way she always does.

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My head tipped backwards with the pinch between my shoulders as I stared annoyed up at the ceiling. Now? Today? I hadn’t gotten one of these in months, but they had the audacity to do it today?

This is such an incredibly human reaction. I mean, I swear to god I did this exact thing when reading the text. Poor fucking Col. Love you reminding us that there was a life for him in the immediate past before this story opened by. Of course Col, it might’ve been months, but you know what they say: it comes in waves.

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“Did you get the notice?” I asked without apology, 

Listen, I know you’re over life right now Col, but give our beautiful Mir a break. She was out doing someone that isn’t last night while you were being miserable watching clocks and waiting for the sun to never rise. The contrast between what the two of them were doing is crazy tho, right? Here’s another thing for him to upset with her about LOL. “Meh, you were out fucking and I was getting fucked by life, meh. How dare you have a better time, meh.” This is why he wouldn’t apologize, because how dare she have the audacity when he is miserable af. Love him tho.

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to not let my mind drift to anything that would give me away.

Ugh, that’s a perfect way to remind us that he is holding it together, despite being an ass in the process. He doesn’t want her to know what’s happened, but HOW DARE SHE NOT! Promise, that’ll come up later, you know, him being upset with her for leading a normal life when he’s dealing with his guilt and the woman he feels a substantial amount over dying. No problem.

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“Oh?” she responded nearly instantly. She paused for me to continue, but what was there to say?

“Are you feeling okay?” she finally asked.

JFC Col. Are you really doing this? Just as I knew you would, but are you really? Look at him. The ol’ bait and switch. He totally lures her into asking, and she so sympathetically, instantly responds to his lure. She is beautiful, perfect, and right now, he absolutely doesn’t deserve to have her on the other side of this phone being perfectly cordial and alert for him when he says he’s trying to withhold his sorrow but then throws it out on a line with one of those RED BOBBERS AND NEON, SPINNING LURES!

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What kind of a question was that? And what could I say? Miriam couldn’t possibly understand how I felt. I didn’t even understand how I felt. What the fuck are you supposed to do when you get so caught up in a human that you would give anything to die with them?

See. See? Fucking see? “MEH what kind of a question was that?” ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW? A PERFECTLY REASONABLE ONE, YOU ASSHAT! Jfc. He is insufferable sometimes, I swear to god. I love him so much, but he is so UNREASONABLE. The fucking enigma of him keeping it from her bu then being upset that she “couldn’t possibly” understand. How the fuck do you know that, Col? How do you know she couldn’t? You just have to be the martyr of the world YOU created, don’t you? You just have to be.

Listen, we know you don’t understand how you feel. You do, but you also don’t, okay? You say it so beautifully, that you wanted to die with her, but also there you go again, inserting yourself into a situation that is the most about Sophie. She’s the one who died here Col, not you. SOPHIE died. SOPHIE. And you’re over here getting angry at Mir because you aren’t telling her anything despite her asking, and she wouldn’t understand anyway, so you think.

In all realness, this is a beautifully constructed piece of inner dialogue. So many fucking contradictions that wind together to give us this enigma that is Col. I just love the juxtaposition of the first sentence to the last. He is so angry (misplaced mind you) at Mir for asking if he’s feeling okay, though he’s not, and is attempting not to project. Could he partially be angry with himself for projecting it, surely not? He’s the one who didn’t provide an explanation, essentially luring her to ask. Then, he has the audacity to get pissy because she asked, insinuates she couldn’t understand anyway, then brings us full circle with his self-loathing. Misplaced anger on Mir ---> anger with himself. Two different things, but in reality, they are the same thing with one masquerading as the other.

Ugh, Col. You beautiful disaster <3

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How could she do this? She’s going to work? After all the shit she’s given me about being alone with Henry, I tell her he’s betrayed us, and her response is to run right to him? What about me? What the fuck was I supposed to do now?