Chapter 191

#Chapter 191 – Final Words “Victor,” I say, my hands sliding down the bars of my cell as I sink to the floor. He’s just across the short aisle from me, but with these metal bars between us…

He might as well be a world away. I am desperate to go to him, touch him, help him – but I can’t.

He doesn’t say a word in response, but I can see him breathing, his breath fast and shallow. I press on.

“Victor, I’m so sorry –“

“No,” he says, interrupting me. His word is light – so light – but I hear the intensity in it, even if it’s barely audible.

I see him work to move then, to turn towards me and look at my face, but I also see him flinch, hear the hiss of breath that escapes from his mouth.

“Don’t,” I say, reaching out a hand towards him to stop him – ridiculously, as if I could touch him, stop him. “Please, Victor – don’t move – it’s not worth it.”

He pauses and then sighs, and I can see his shoulders slump. “I want to look at you, Evelyn. When I tell you how sorry I am. I want you to see it in my face, how much I mean it.”

Tears begin to slip down my cheeks then. God damnit, why are we separate in this moment? All I want to do is be with him, be next to him, press my body up against his. Where it belongs.

“It’s all right, Victor,” I say, shaking my head, not bothering to wipe away the tears that drip off my chin.

“You don’t have to say anything – I know, I understand –“

“No, Evelyn,” he insists. “I have to say this to you. My darling,” he takes a deep breath, preparing himself. “Everything I did, I did wrong. And I’m not just talking about that morning, after the fire.”

I rest my forehead against the bars, closing my eyes and trying to control my tears. I don’t want him to hear me, to think that he’s somehow making me feel worse.

“I think I knew, Evelyn,” he says, “from that very first day when I met you again, with the boys, at that ridiculous game show – I think I knew, even then, that there was this thing between us. Whatever it is. I never would have admitted it to myself, because I was too proud – but from that moment, everything with Amelia and I was just…doomed.”

I nod, agreeing. I think I knew it too. I never would have admitted it, never would have wanted to hand over the power and control over my life that loving him would have required. But I had known, that day, that I was tied to him.

“I was so cruel to you,” Victor says, his voice rueful. “I think I was scared, but it’s not an excuse. But I wanted you then – with the boys, as much as the boys – maybe more than the boys – wanted you in my life, wanted you by my side, forever.”

I hear him scowl at himself, then, a thick grumble building in his chest. I open my eyes and see his body wince with it, with the pain of his emotion, of his speech.

“My life collapsed around me, Evelyn, the day you walked back into it. But thank god it did, because it was not the life I wanted at all. It was not the life with you. And in the months since then, I’ve been better – I’ve been starting to build my good life, the right one. The life that revolves around you.”

“Victor,” I say, my own voice thick with tears, shaking my head. “I’m so sorry. I destroyed everything –“

“No,” he says, insistent. And this time, he does move. I see him work, now, to turn on the ground, with his shoulder against the floor as the pivot, using his legs and his feet to push himself in a half circle so that he can look at me in my eyes with his own.

The work, clearly, is agonizing – I can see the labor it takes, see the pain on his face. Several times I whisper to him to stop, but he keeps going, determined. I’m sobbing by the time he looks at my face, overwrought by my love for him, my worry for him, my agony in the face of his own agony.

God, I can barely stand it, to see him like this. The man I love, laid so low. At the hands of my own family, as he tried to rescue me, rescue our sons.

The guilt. I’ll never be able to outlive the guilt.

“No, Evelyn,” Victor whispers. “Don’t. Every moment has been worth it. Every single thing that has fallen apart and been rebuilt, no matter how shaky – it is right. You know it too.”

I nod to him, crying so hard I can’t shape words. But I do know it. I know it in the very core of my being, that the life we’re making is right.

But god, will we even get to live it? Has the price been too high?

“The only thing I would change,” Victor says, shaking his head ever so slightly. “The only, singular thing I would change is how I treated you that morning, after the phone call in the closet.”

I shake my head, looking down at the floor, reliving those awful moments. But he had been right – I had betrayed him so completely, had done things that were absolutely unforgivable –

“No, Evelyn,” he says again, bringing my attention and my gaze back to his. “You can’t – you can’t blame yourself. I backed you into a corner where you had no power.” He pauses then, smiling, just a little. “Frankly, it’s clever, what you did – taking advantage where you had it –“

I laugh ruefully, not really able to believe what I’m hearing. He’s complimenting for what I did to him –

my complete betrayal –

“Seriously,” he says, and I can hear even a little bit of humor in his voice. I look up at him, shocked. “It’s something Alvin and Ian would have done. I think I always took a little credit, unfairly, for their affinity for spying and subterfuge, but you’ve really outdone me this time – you are the original sneaky squirrel –“

I can’t help it – the shaky laugh that bursts from me at that – racking through my agonized body and spirit. I grip the bars of the cell for support –

God damnit, how can I be laughing at a time like this –

But Victor has a smile on his face too, a little bit of joy bringing such light to his ashen skin.

“I forgive you everything, Evelyn, if there’s even anything to forgive. Please, please forgive me. How I treated you that morning – I was so angry, Evie, but I was so wrong – please – I’ll do anything –“

“Stop,” I say, almost choking on the word, which sticks against the tears that are thick in my throat. “I forgive you, darling – I forgive you everything.” I shake my head then, my eyes fastened to his. “We have both made mistakes – we can move on – we can learn how to trust each other.”

I see him nod, his lips still turned up in his smile and I can’t help but return it myself.

I laugh, then, at the awful ridiculousness of it all. Of him lying on the cement floor across from me, bleeding out his life’s blood, smiling at me like a teenager in love. Of me, cross legged and sobbing, tears and snot running down my face, so in love with him I can barely breathe.

I brusky run my forearm over my face and under my nose, trying to clean myself up. I know I’m not a very pretty picture right now, my face all red and ugly from crying. But I can tell he doesn’t care.

“I’m so in love with you, Victor,” I say, pulling myself together and leaning forward, baring my heart to him. “I was so stupid to think that I could leave and live without you – I’d have been home in a month anyway –“

“No,” he says, shaking his head and interrupting me. “I’d have found you long before then. I love you, Evelyn. My Luna. I’m never going to be stupid enough to let you go ever again.”

I laugh, closing my eyes, relishing the sound of his words. But knowing, in the core of my being, that as assured as I am of his love for me, and of mine for him…

…That time is very short. And his wounded body could make that choice for us even against our consent.

“Hold on, Victor,” I say, gripping the bars of my cell with determination. “I’m going to get you out of here.

Because if you die before I get a chance to live this life with you…I’m going to burn this whole world to the ground.”

Victor opens his mouth to reply, but before he can, we hear the door at the top of the stairs creek open.