Blue-Eyed Love

My delicate life has never traveled so close to the edge before. I’ve tempted fate plenty of times, but today was different.

I couldn’t make out the shape of my trembling hand. Everything was distorted, hazy, unrecognizable. But no matter how much my vision wanted me to forget, I couldn’t block out the sight of the deep red liquid. It pooled from my abdomen like a faucet. Droplets slithered around my fingers, staining my skin. It seeped onto my arms, and ran over my leg.

I glanced up, disgusted to find a pair of cold, sky blue eyes staring back. They softened if not for a second, showing the smallest flicker of sympathy. Then imediately, returned to their remorseless state.

I glared at the familiar form, subconciously tracing the edge of his face I tried so hard to forget. The pain in my gut snapped me out of it.

Hartred eminated from me, wafting over to him. The sight made him tense- his only acknowledgement of my pain.

He had lead them to me.

I wanted to belive differently, I wanted him to do the right thing. I wanted him to love me.

But he had turned me in like a common criminal. He had decided my fate before I even had the chance to change it. He had wanted to live more than he wanted me.

Protecting me wasn’t worth his life.

Traitor.

If only his commander knew what he had done, what lengths he took to keep our identities- his identity a secret.

They wouldn’t think twice about his execution.

It would be so easy to give him up, to point the gun of accusation at him instead of me. It might buy me enough time to slip away, undetected.

I would do it too, if my legs could carry me. If I knew the way out of the city, If I was physically able to take down a professionally trained guard. If I could learn to be selfish, if I wouldn’t feel guilty.

If I didn’t love him.

That’s what it came down to, I loved him more than he loved me.

And I could never let him die on my account.

Instead, I wrapped my arms around my bloody legs and waited as his cold fingers hugged the trigger of a gun.

I squeezed my eyes shut as if that would take away the memory. As if somehow that would make him stop. I didn’t know what I would remember afterward, I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t his face. But the image kept creeping in against my will, forcing open the door to my mind. All I could see were his stony blue eyes.

When the shot rang out, I held my breath, unable to feel anything. I didn’t want to open my eyes, didn’t want to acknowledge my death, didn’t want to remember the pain. I thought death was supposed to take it all away, make you forget, give you peace.

Why didn’t I feel that?

Without warning, something warm wrapped around my back, and under my legs. It cradled me, and whispered into my ear words of comfort. Maybe this feeling was my peace, and it had come to take me home.

I savored the familiarity of that tranquility, finally content, when the pain returned. It was dull at first, as though a numbing agent was wearing off. Then it sharpened, washing back the memories and the sorrow.

The warmth still surrounded me, but the pain was overwhelming it.

Then a voice murmered, “Don’t worry, I will never leave you.”

My eyes opened to find two sky blue ones staring back at me. But this time, they were filled with a softness I coudn’t describe, a tenderness I couldn’t explain.

My blue-eyed love didn’t kill me, he saved me.