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There was a pause, but she answered this time. “That was a lifetime ago.”
“Just a little over five years.”
“Like I said – a lifetime ago.”
“I saved you back then. We could help save each other this time.”
“That’s the thing… this time, I don’t need saving.”
And she kicked at my head from out of the darkness.
I barely blocked it in time. I stumbled backwards, but it was like fighting two people at once – she was so fast that I could barely keep up with her flurry of punches and kicks.
She wasn’t holding back –
So neither did I.
I landed a punch to her ribs, and she grunted –
But then she elbowed me in the solar plexus.
I gritted my teeth and shoved her away –
Then aimed my gun at her.
Unfortunately, I also found myself staring down the barrel of hers.
“We don’t have to do this,” I said.
“It would seem we do.”
“I just wanted to talk – ”
“YOU LEFT ME!” she suddenly screamed, her face twisted with suffering.
“Rachel, I went to prison – ”
“YOU STILL DISAPPEARED!” she cried out, a howl of suffering from the depths of the abyss. “YOU ABANDONED ME!”
It finally hit me:
Her father had left her when she was seven.
She saw him two more times after that, then never again.
I had left her, too…
Just like her father.
I hadn’t meant to…
I hadn’t wanted to…
But I had.
I’d always known that my disappearance must have hurt her…
But I’d never considered how it might tear open a 20-year-old wound that had never healed.
