Page 124 of Beneath His Robes

Would I block my soul from his by committing this action?

Should I believe the lore or trust that I knew it was done.

I had to do this.

And yet, deep down, I couldn’t help but wonder…

Was I doing the right thing?

I’d sought vengeance for so long, redemption for what was done to the man I love. Redemption for me. But just like witnessing the death of the men who had hurt me…there wasn’t peace. There wasn’t some magical ending that made you feel like you could breathe again.

I was done.

It felt like…a true end. An end to everything I had known…all the rage, the pain. I wasn’t sure if that was a beginning or just another layer of the same endless cycle with this bullet loaded in the magazine.

I didn’t know. Maybe I would never know.

But as I sat there, staring at the grave before me, I felt something stir.

A flicker of hope.

A sliver of something that felt almost like a beginning.

I would see him again.

It was too small to be real, too fragile to trust. But for the first time since the attack, since the death of Elias, I wondered if there was the potential for true peace. Even if it wasn’t the life I had imagined or the peace I thought I wanted, even though guilt swam in my gut.

Maybe that was the hardest thing to come to terms with—life doesn’t always give you the ending you expect. It doesn’t always give you the closure you think you need. Sometimes, you have to make it up as you go along, picking up the pieces that are left behind, no matter how broken they might be.

You have to be the one in control of the pen.

Everything I loved was dead. Even my fucking plant was gone.

What was there left for me? Nothing. I needed to take action.

And so I was.

For once in my fucking life, I was picking up the pen and finishing my own story.

I was creating my ending.

My legs felt heavy, the fear and uncertainty plaguing me with doubt. It was the first time I felt sure of anything. The first time I felt peace.

“I will see you soon, Mon Pur,” I said, closing my eyes, gripping the rosary so tightly in my other hand that blood seeped through my fingers.

With a deep, steadying breath, I brought the barrel to my head, my eyes set on the love of my life. I prayed he would understand, that he would agree I had been through enough. I deserved the ending that wasn’t forced to continue existing, to live for someone else.

My soul was untethered. The minute he left me, I was lost. I didn’t want my strings pulled by anyone. I wasn’t a puppet. At my mother’s funeral, he was whispering under his breath, and those words were prominent in my mind.

May you find peace in this moment,

as the world softly fades away.

May the love you’ve given return to you,

filling your heart, lighting your way.

Come back to me, Elias.

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