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Conor
I probably pushed it too far.
By the time I finally jerked the handlebars toward the muddy side of the road I was barely in control. My whole body shook. My vision was blurry and fading in and out. Flashes that had nothing to do with the lightning on the horizon blinded me like the passing headlights stabbing through the pouring rain. A fever consumed my flesh. Ate at my brain.
When I said that I would take everything from Aurnia, I never really thought that would mean her life. But I risked that, too. Out there on that black slick highway. I was so goddamn selfish that I pushed. And pushed. And pushed some fucking more.
I knew if I blacked out, even for just half a second, the bike would skid. The asphalt would tear. Aurnia would be thrown against the hard metal guardrails like a rag doll. Bones crushed. Lungs punctured. Life extinguished.
And yet I told myself a little farther. I could go a little farther. And if I made it a little farther, I could make it a little farther after that. I could string together a little farthers till we reached Limerick. Till I proved myself, the world, motherfucking Fate herself wrong: I was not bound to destroy Aurnia.
I could help her. I could be there for her. I could heal her like she’d hoped I would. I could do for Aurnia what was not done for me.
A little farther and I could get her to Limerick. A little farther and I could get her to that interview. A little farther and…
A growl of frustration began deep in my belly and rose to a rumbling roar as I finally ran out of a little farthers. I yelled because I was admitting defeat. Because this, this was the end.
I didn’t fucking want the end.
I hadn’t killed Aurnia out there on that long stretch of highway. But I might as fucking well have.
Aurnia was calling my name over the rain as I staggered off the bike, whole body shaking. She shouted for me as the bike tipped. Fell. Caught her leg underneath it. Took it down with her. No, no. It was me. I took her down with me. I turned back to the bike, my vision wavering in front of me. With a scream of rage and pain, I flipped the bike off her.
It hit the pavement with a horrible crunch. The handlebars lay in an unnatural position. The metal was scratched and crumpled. I probably wouldn’t be able to ride the goddamn thing anymore. I made sure of that. I kicked the fecking thing till my bad leg gave out and I fell to the muddy gravel on the side of the road.
Aurnia hadn’t moved from the spot where she had fallen. She had stopped calling my name. Cars splashed water across us from the highway as they sped by without a care. I gripped at the old wound that burned like I was being branded. I shivered as the rain fell harder. But there was no escaping the pain. No pills. No liquor. No drugs to cut the edge. Just me and my fucking agony. Just me and my fucking fate.
Aurnia crawled toward me, helmet cast aside, hair dripping wet. I held up a hand to her.
“Don’t come any closer,” I shouted over the downpour. “Just stay away.”
But Aurnia kept coming.
When she reached me, I pushed myself back, dragging my leg like an invalid. I collapsed as the pain overwhelmed me. Rain splattered against my face as I clenched my eyes shut, grinding my teeth.
I almost relented when delicate fingertips brushed along the spasming muscle of my left leg. I almost let her press her cold palm like an icy compress against the fire. I almost allowed her to draw the back of her hand against my forehead. To feel me. To heal me.
But it wouldn’t have been fair. Or right. Or anything close to love.
I grabbed Aurnia’s wrist with the speed of a viper’s strike and squeezed till she winced in pain, cried my name, and tried to pull away from me.
“There!” I shouted, pushing her hand away from me as I sat up. “That’s what a reasonable person does, Aurnia. Feels pain. Tries to get away. That’s what you should have been doing all this time. Getting away. Getting far, far away as you can…from me.”
She remained drawn into herself there on the gravel, hand clutched to her chest. I forced myself to my feet. I stumbled for balance on my right leg, growled in agony as I had to catch myself with my left.
I fought off the nausea, the waves of sickening heat, the flashes of blinding white across my vision and stayed upright.
I sent a quick text. I slipped the phone in my pocket just as Aurnia looked up at me.
The rain fell around us like a curtain and she blinked away the drops that caught in her eyelashes. On Aurnia’s face wasn’t hurt. But anger.
“Why did you make me get on your stupid motorcycle?” she asked.
My face contorted in a nasty snarl.
“To show you,” I said, spitting raindrops from my lips like some rabid dog. “To show you, my little thief. That I was right. That I was always going to be right.”
“I was going,” she said, glaring up at me from the ground. “I was seconds from taking the bus. From leaving Dublin. From getting out of your life. You didn’t have to prove whatever insane, fucked up thing you believe about you. So why, I ask again, Conor, did you make me get on your stupid fucking motorcycle?”
