reznikolai | I N B O X

He told me, but I find it funny that you never breathed a word about it. Any other secrets I should know?

Why did you even message me? What, did you want me to cry to you about how lonely I am? To reassure you that I'm thinking about you when I'm fucking someone else? And then would you tell me that there's nothing worth salvaging between us?

You're as selfish as I am.

Because you have so much room to talk about keeping secrets.

I messaged you because I missed you. Because I'm lonely. Because I'm weak. Because you're right, I'm selfish. Because I'm stupid and stay up thinking about what it would have been like to be your wife, to have your stupid little pretty babies, and live a stupid little pretty life.

This was a bad idea from the start.

[It's the specter of the children they'd never have together that hollows out his anger again. All it is is a battered shield around the unabating ache in his chest.]

You know I've always been overfond of bad ideas.

I can't give you that life, as much as everything in me wants to. I can't go back to a year ago and do it all differently. Apparently, I can't even take away your loneliness. Couldn't make you feel loved enough. So what do you want from me?

I don't know.

It's probably no comfort, but being with him only made me feel more lonely in the end.

I'm not sure that's something anyone can solve for me.

No, there are things even I can't fix.

[Then, even though there are a hundred things he could tell her, a thousand, he doesn't know what to say. All he knows is that this isn't finished. Maybe it will never be finished. Always unraveling, always cracking in a dozen directions.]

When I was with him, it was like I was taking back control of myself. It was like confronting the monster all over agin. By owning all the parts of myself that I hate, I could rob him of the power to make me feel small. Maybe that's strange, but you're the last person who could judge me right now.

I'm telling you this because I've dealt with my own darkness that nobody could extinguish for me.

[ She knows he doesn't mean it like this, but it feels like confirmation that she's broken. Like why should she even bother trying to put the pieces back together? ]

I'm not judging you.
I understand it.

[ Curious.... about how it happened for sure. ]

For me it felt like.... I got to be cruel. I got to be greedy. I got to be the opposite of a saint.
I felt like a monster but I didn't feel bad.
I didn't think you could love that Alina though.
I don't so I don't think anyone should have to.

I don't love the monster. I don't think anyone should have to bear the burden of what I become. Sure, I've learned to control it, but I doubt I'll ever be rid of it.

You chose to anyway. To bear it, to love me.

Why didn't you let me do the same for you?

Because I'm not sure I deserve it.
Go be happy, Nikolai.
I don't have to be a part of it.

[She's right. Neither of them are destined to be a part of the other's happiness. If he's destined for happiness at all. But in this moment, folded up in the lonely dark and holding too many jagged clashing emotions, all he can think to write is:]

Come see me.

[And he fires it off before he can think better of it. Then a hasty amendment:]

Tomorrow.

[After all, the hour is waning to nearly three o'clock by now.]

[ Who is the bigger fool? Him for offering or her for accepting. This only will end one way. The path is drawn. ]

ok.

[They have that in common too. Incurable foolishness.]

Good night, Alina.

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