Letting Go
by Damien Hunt

It has been six months since that night. The first time it was unleashed, that I let it out. For that long I held it within despite the urge, my need for it. The hardest part is the wanting, the desperation I feel for it to happen again, because when it does I am finally free. The suffering I have endured throughout my life is nothing compared to this. To have such a release from the pain and live in constant denial of it, it's intolerable. It makes the pain worse, so very much worse and I am always afraid.

But I can't tell that to these idiots.

The cop, the short one, turns the recorder back on. This is its fifth tape. He looks back at me and sneers, but it comes off lame. He is tired, his partner too. They try to play good cop, bad cop, but they keep forgetting which is which.

SLAM!

I am not startled, but his partner is. I guess it is shorty's turn to be bad cop. The tall one leaves to get some coffee and forgets to offer me some like good cop should. Shorty rubs his sore palm, steps away from the table and continues to sneer at me. And I thank . . . not God, but something, that he doesn't know what I'm really scared of. I wish I could tell him, but he wouldn't believe. I imagine if I did, I might get off on insanity. Something, some old part of me that has been buried in the months of fear, surfaces momentarily and I smile slightly at the dark humor in that thought.

"So, Donovan," he starts off yet again, "why don't you start from the beginning. Tell me what happened that night?"

I lean forward and lay it on thick, saying in a mocking tone, "I know you guys are on a budget, but it can't be that expensive to have a tape copied can it?" He's stunned and I push it further. "I mean damn, how many copies do you need? Can't you pigs just share the tape?"

He leaves, rushes out, slams the door. Someone else's turn to be bad cop.

I watch the video tape again while he is away. All black and white, in it I stand behind the cash while four drunken morons walk out of the gas station without paying and I follow. I hate that part the most, the point where I go after them. If only I hadn't left the store. The camera doesn't shoot the outside, but I remember. The beating and then the dark. The monitor goes black, but the camera keeps recording. Seconds stretch into eternity and I thank something again that there is no sound. I can still hear their screams when I sleep. Then it's gone and everything is normal, except the frost covering the windows.

They never find the bodies.

* * *

It's a chill winter Sunday, no work, no school, no homework. None I plan on doing anyway. Ophelia walks out of the bedroom and sits herself down in her favorite chair, wrapped up in a blanket to ward off the cold. She changes the channel to some drama and I frown.

"I was watching that." I am careful to keep my voice neutral.

"Oh, it's a stupid show." She doesn't even bother looking at me, just keeps watching the tv. A moment later she catches me glaring and pouts. "Sorry, but you can always watch it later, my show is on now." She has such cute lips. "Besides, you should paint."

She is right, but it doesn't make it any better. For a moment I hate her for that, especially since she never looks at any of my work anyway. I sit, watching the drama without seeing any of it, just wondering what I am doing with her. She looks at me, smiles that sweet smile of hers and asks me to get her a glass of water. I am at the fridge before I realize it.

I pass her the glass and she smiles again. I find myself smiling back as she says, "Love you."

* * *

I love you . . .

I wake up as the door slams closed. Shorty is back and I feel it coming, his final attempt. Finally, maybe I can go home soon, though suddenly I am not looking forward to getting to sleep.

"Look kid, five disappearances, no bodies and you're the only link. Just tell me . . . anything and you'll get a deal for cooperating. Keep pulling this bull and your going away for a very long time."

I shake my head. "I got nothing for ya, nothing I haven't already said. We had an argument, broke up and she went to her mothers, at least that's where she told me to send her stuff."

He sighs, gets up to leave again, but stops short of the door and turns back. "You don't remember anything else from that night?"

For a moment I wonder which night he refers to, but it doesn't really matter. I will always remember, especially Ophelia, everything about her. I remember her crying.

* * *

I am painting when she walks in, pissed off. It took a long time for me to learn to recognize when she was angry. She never lets herself look mad. Instead she hides behind that wounded look, the one that says it is all my fault.

I am almost finished my latest work, a self portrait drowning within a great demon, but I pause and look at her. Innocently I say, "what?" That is when the water works start. I roll my eyes and it startles her, she isn't expecting that. This is usually when I cave in, but not this time.

"You love these paintings more than you love me," she accuses in her hurt voice. The kind of voice that makes you want to fix whatever is wrong, put everything right and apologize for it. At least that's what it did to me, but no more. I've said too many sorrys.

"Maybe." I don't say anything more, just turn back to my canvas, but I know she is shocked. She isn't even snuffling tears anymore. It's over, just like that. She can't manipulate me anymore.

I don't expect the attack, it comes from behind and I have never been a physically imposing person. She pins me down, sits on my back and starts pounding me, but I only laugh. It's funny, all this time I let her control me and this is all it takes to break it, to break her. But she doesn't see the humor and starts screaming.

The last thing I remember is the knife entering my back. How many times, I don't know. The pain is fierce, taking me back to that night at the gas station. I am dying and the darkness comes. She keeps screaming, but it changes, rage turning suddenly to terror. Her screams follow me down into the darkness until even they are lost to its icy depths.

* * *

Shorty is waiting for an answer. I look at him and shake my head. "No." I'm home within the hour, but not allowed to leave town. Not that I have anywhere to go.

* * *

She waits in the floating darkness, letting it carry her aloft the surrounding waves. She is patient and she has nothing but time. Nothing else, now that she is dead. She doesn't turn around though, she knows they are there floating behind her, cradled by the same waves that sooth her. They don't frighten her. They are mere shadows, ghosts fading in the abyss, into nothingness. But it is so peaceful and she likes that, it helps. They would scream at her if she turned, paid them any attention, scream for help. She cannot help them, wouldn't if she could. So she ignores them and waits patiently.

Before her spread out across the blackness are pinpoints of flickering light. Some are brighter than others, some spark faintly at the edge of her vision, poised on the edge of the abyss of nothing behind her and in danger of fading like the souls she continues to ignore. She smiles, a lovely smile, pearly white and perfect. And cold.

"I'm waiting lover," the lights waver as her voice ripples out across the expanse. "I'll wait forever, till the end of the world and longer."

Soon he will hear her, a whisper only perhaps, but he will hear and then she will make him hers again. It is only a matter of time, and she has plenty of it to spend. One of the stars sparks brightly suddenly and then begins to fall, streaking by and fading out. It has already begun.

* * *

She is with me always. I can't get her voice out of my head. The paintings don't help anymore and I feel it growing stronger within. Soon it will be free and I wonder if I even care anymore.

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