Re: Venetian penthouse: Sam & Cris
He knew she didn't know. She was shaking her head, shaking her head, and then she was crying, and he'd made a mistake. ¡Carajo! He was so stupid. He should have remembered what she didn't remember. He should've known better than to come bolting into the room, gore on gold, stippled with evidence of violence against a man whose name rang to her as nothing more than disturbingly familiar, some bad dream half forgotten.—But he hadn't remembered, and her tears that came hot against his throat, welled and fell down beneath the toothache white of his undershirt—they were on him. He'd scared her.
Cris held the girl, her arms snaking up to latch on, her knuckles against his lips, her body shaking, her limbs slow, her gaze unfocused, blue jarring against the red irritation of tears, everything the drip-drag of sedatives. Que fue culpa suya.—She lifted her hand, reaching for the discarded shirt, and it was all Cris could do to not tug hard on her bicep, on those scrubs, to fold her arm back in, tuck it away safely. But, she'd just come out of a straightjacket and he wasn't going to restrain her more. He just didn't know how to answer her just then.
He wasn't numb the way she was, the way Neil was. There was no layer of cotton. There was no hole, no emptiness inside of him. He felt everything, scraping and close, like nerves lit and devoured by fat-greedy flame. His soul was blood red, screaming, damning him to an eternity of torture.—He wasn't narcissistic enough to to believe it was really all on his shoulders, the things that had happened. He wasn't at fault for the empty chambers of a heart, boxed and gifted. But the blood on his shirt, spackled down his pants, that really was on him. He hadn't pulled the trigger, but he'd stood there and he'd said here with fingers digging into black hair, nails against scalp. He'd said do it human. He'd stood with blood pooling around his shoes, wetting thirsty earth, and looked down at blown-out skull, smithereens right where he'd had his fingers, a waxy, lifeless face pale, turned cheek, with familiar eyes inked empty on the angry sky above. He'd been there, acted, bending brittle morals until they shattered to nothing in his throat, in the acid of his stomach, eating him from the inside out in a defiant act of self-cannibalization.
How did you tell that to someone? How did you explain that to a girl on your lap, curled close and scared like you were meant to protect her, not watch her bleed out among parched weeds? How did you tell her what you'd done?
Cris didn't have an answer. He wet his lips as he looked down at Sam, and now he shook his head. He felt for her outstretched fingers and folded his hand around hers. He put his cheek to the top of her head and closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry." Flecked English, hoarse. Cris pressed another desperate kiss to Sam's hair. "Lo siento." Softer. Another kiss. "I shoulda been here."