It never fucking ends.
Nokosi
I raise the axe and bring it down, it splinters the wood into three pieces. They’re a bit dry this time of year. Great for burning. I drop the axe and wipe my face with the T-shirt I’ve hooked over the waistband of my jeans.
After taking a gulp of water, I place the bottle back on the ground and pick up the axe again, letting it stall in mid-air after chopping another block when a truck I recognize pulls down the driveway over a hundred yards away.
“Stay there,” Anetúte yells at me as he bounds out of the house. I’ve not seen him move that fast in years.
What the fuck is Shaw doing here? Lilith’s father.
Nash suddenly appears at my side and places his hand on my chest as I wipe my hands clean.
Anetúte and Shaw speak sometimes, but apart from asking him how Lilith is, we don’t personally have fuck all to do with each other. It’s not personal, I just fucking hate him for abandoning Lilith when she needed him the most.
If he hadn’t left, maybe she and Willow might not have suffered their pain so much.
I watch them talk in silence. Nash and I don’t say a word. But then Shaw starts sobbing, his head falls onto my father’s shoulder who hugs him with one arm.
My eyes burn.
Nash holds me under his arm.
She’s gone. She’s gone and she never replied to one of my fucking letters. I never got to say goodbye.
“Fucking bitch,” I hiss, gritting my teeth and turning back to the block. I put another piece on it and whack it with the axe, letting all my anger out. “I’m glad she’s dead. She can go to fucking hell.”
Nash squeezes my shoulder and I turn to him, hating that I want to hate her, but I can’t. She was the fucking light of my life. She was everything to me. She consumed me. Her kisses, her touch, her smell, her smile.
I never accepted that I would actually lose her until now.
I shove my brother away after a moment and he puts another log down for me.
THWACK.
And another.
THWACK.
And another—
There’s an ear-piercing screech from far away and Nash and I turn to watch Shaw’s truck reverse and peel out of here faster than if flaming cops were chasing him.
“Coyote?” Nash asks when the sound gets louder.
“Doesn’t sound like any coyote I ever heard.”
Dad makes his way towards us, his arms cradling something pink and fluffy. His cheeks are shiny with trails of tears and his eyes are swollen with grief and sorrow but then they hold something else… something akin to joy.
“Son,” he says to me, beckoning me closer.
“Is she dead?” I ask, crass and guarded. I don’t want to cry over her anymore. I’ve allowed myself to do so too much.
“She passed away this morning at five fifteen,” he breathes, and my chest tightens. “She passed in her sleep, gently.”
I’m never going to see her again. I’m never going to see her smile and she had the most beautiful smile. Her evil-as-sin eyes, green and fucking weird in a sexy and seductive way. Her laugh… so mischievous.
Gone. No more.
The lump in my throat gets bigger.
“She’s at peace now, son, she was in a lot of pain.”
I look down trying to compose myself.
“But…” He takes a final step towards me and holds out the pink fluffy thing. “She left us a gift. A very precious, generous, beautiful gift.”
I pull down the edge of the fluff, it feels soft like rabbit fur.
A gasp gets clogged in my throat when I see a tiny little nose, fingers clutching a chubby little cheek, teardrop eyebrows above soft, closed eyelids and thick lashes.
“She gave you a daughter,” he whispers, gently guiding her towards my chest.
I look down at the girl almost in my arms and one of my tears falls onto her forehead. She cries, it startles me, so I push her back.
“I don’t know what to do with a fucking kid. I want Lilith… not a baby.” I walk away, from them, from a child that’s supposed to be mine.
“Wait!” my father calls, handing the girl to my brother who is more than happy to take her. He can be her dad. I don’t want this. “There’s something else.” He grabs my ponytail, something he did to us as kids but not adults. Then he slaps a large envelope to my chest. It’s thick and heavy and it has my name on the front in her handwriting. Or at least I think it’s her handwriting, I didn’t get her for long enough to ever fucking know.
I carry it up to my room and lock the door, ignoring my brother’s coos to the child.
How dare she just leave me a fucking baby I never asked for and then die?
I punch my door, and then punch it again, and then again until my knuckles start to bleed and red stains the oak.
“FUCK YOU!” I scream at her picture that I pinned there. My body hurts. My soul.
How could somebody I hardly know have the power to destroy me like this?
She meant to kill me. She never said she loved me. She never even really told me she cared except for when she was jealous or bouncing on my dick unprotected. Because turns out her sister—the not dying one—was the one who had the birth control… or so I gather.
What a mess.
Lilith was a mess. She’s made me into a mess.
I hold the large letter again and contemplate ripping it up, but I just can’t.
It’s Lilith. Apart from a few photos of her, it’s all I have left.
Nash and my father enter the house. The kid is squawking.
I don’t care.
I rip open the large envelope with the same amount of care I have for that kid downstairs. ZERO. More, smaller envelopes fall out, one of them is so thick and heavy I wonder if it might be a book. I push that to the side and go for the one that says, READ ME FIRST OR BE HAUNTED FOREVER.
I tear it open with a little more tact this time and hold it level with my eyes.
Nokosi, I have started and stopped this letter around fifty times. It’s the hardest one I will ever write in my life… and the last one. (That was a joke. Maybe one day you’ll laugh.)
I know you probably hate me, or maybe you’ve forgotten all about me and have moved on already.
But I just need you to know that those few precious weeks that we spent together were the greatest, most fucked-up weeks of my entire life.
I fell for you so hard and so fast my head is still spinning… or maybe that’s the tumor.
I didn’t ignore your letters. I consumed them and I replied to every single one. They follow this, but you need to read this one first because it’s the most important.
I’m dead now. Not right this second but by the time you’re reading this I’m dead and I am entrusting you with my greatest achievement.
My beating heart. The only part of me that is not tainted and never will be.
Our daughter
I have yet to meet her myself but I love her so unconditionally it hurts to think that you might not want her. I’m hoping you’ve already seen her and have fallen in love, faster and harder than you did with me. Because fuck it if we didn’t fall fast and hard and my biggest regret is never having the chance to tell you just how much you mean to me.