Eve's Cure

She kept saying she wanted to see me again, and I kept casually-but-forcefully stating that that would be excellent...after her wedding. She told me she didn't understand why I insisted that it be afterward, but when I told her that before was okay too, she didn't push things. Chances are she understood that whatever my reasoning was, it was probably solid. More likely, she recognized her own reasoning and was glad to see it pushed aside.

This is a sort-of letter she directed to me. If you're a tl;dr type, well, you probably should've left eight years ago when I started out.

---

"Without going back and actually checking, I would have to guess that it has been roughly over 5 years since I began my venture in online journal-dom. Over the course of those years, I have had approximately 5 (maybe more) "blogs" - I still prefer to call them journals. This is the only one that was there at the beginning and is still in existence. Strange, that of all the journals I've had, the one that causes me the most pain is the one I still have active. Maybe I like pain. I've always said so, but I'm a ridiculous baby at the same time. I'll compromise and say that I tend to like self-inflicted pain as opposed to other-inflicted pain. Hmmm.

"Moving on . . . I think I cannot bear to let this one go because it holds so much of my life. Yes, only 5 years, but those 5 years span the last two to three of my high school career and will cover all of my college years once I'm done (well, my undergraduate years anyway). Those are amazingly powerful years.

"I decided to write this entry because I was on an old friend's journal and had a desire to write him, a desire that refused to be ignored. Why would I even hesitate? Well, I'm not sure this old friend wants to hear from me, in all honesty. And if we're being completely truthful, I can't say I would blame him one bit. He was correct when he said that I've used him as little more than a leaning post from time to time, usually when I needed someone to love me and care about me. He always did. Yes, I've used him and I've always known and the guilt has never gone away, but I never stopped. Until about a year and a half ago. He called out of the blue one summer while I was at work. The conversation was full of not much more than awkward silence. He left saying he'd wait to hear from me. I said okay and then whispered, "You won't" as I hung up the phone. How horrible of me, I know. I've never forgotten that, as with much of our conversation over the years. He said he's never been able to get angry with me the way we both know he should . . . and I've never been able to get him out of my heart the way I should. Yes, I'm engaged to Reito and he's the one I want to spend my life with, but, my heart still stopped the last time I saw him, and it does if I see pictures of him (not very often) or even just recall his face. I still smile when I think of him. No matter how much time passes between when we see each other or talk (and I don't expect either will happen again), there's still a part of me that he has and always will. It frustrates Reito and I feel bad, because he knows that he can't tap some part of me and he doesn't really understand why. He's broken most of my walls down or at least found a way inside of them, but he still can't figure me out completely. He wants to spend the rest of his life trying though, which, really, what more could I ask for? He loves me and I love him and even though it's a different kind of love, it's no less real.

"So Red, if you read this still, I'm sorry. Truly. I know I've said it a million times, but I still am. You're right, you don't owe me anything. Our ties have been severed, but I promised once (or twice or tons of times) that I would love you forever and despite my best attempts, I'm starting to realize that may be true after all. It's not a love like it used to be. It's a quiet one, one that just sits inside me, waiting for me to remember it's there. I remember once saying that my last thought this side of the grave would be of you. I wouldn't be surprised if your memory doesn't give the rest of my life a damn good fight for it, too."

---

In all fairness, now that the wedding is out of the way, I'll explain what was going on in my mind as best I can.

On the surface, it seemed obvious. A woman I spent the better part of a decade getting heartstomped by, a woman who never escaped the stranglehold I put around her ability to love others, sounded as if she wanted to see me one last time before she was married. That is to say, more appropriately, she sounded as if she wanted to see me one last time. Period.

On the surface, she's someone who likes to bring about closure herself. On the surface, her now-husband would be less than pleased for her to meet with me. Even when I suggested that she could bring him along, she said it was the worst possible thing that could happen.

That's all on the surface. Why would that be the worst possible thing? Why is it that I've seen her once in a number of years now but her then-fiance could find jealousy for me? Who in her right mind would bring up someone like me to someone like him?

No one in their right mind, because no one in their right mind is honest. She probably did so feeling it was as truthful as possible not to hide that there was a dark place in her heart that would never belong to anyone but me. How could it? That place is where the part of my soul she took resides. Where it feeds and grows and lives and kills off anything that tries to intrude.

Should I have chosen to meet her before her wedding, there were two large negative possibilities. One that she would view it as closing my chapter in her books. Another that I would turn sour and use it as an opportunity to instill as much of my oiled blood in her veins as possible. A small injection of doubt goes a long way when the person giving the medicine looks like, acts like, and IS the doctor. The evil part of me (and it is a large part) would have found some restitution in pulling the kickstand out of an institution that, these days, is anything but sturdy.

But I would never do something like that to her intentionally, would I? My ego told me no. My darkness smiled and licked his teeth. As children you swear you'll trust each other with anything. As adults, I found that sometimes you have to make decisions based on not being able to trust either of you.

After the wedding the potential is still there. She could still close the doors to me. I could still wax malicious and spit poison.

My love and that poison have sometimes been one in the same. That is why after lowering myself to a leaning-post and servant, after becoming a dust rag to polish her desires with, I still whisper in her ear. By doing nothing but offering everything I possibly could, relentlessly and unconditionally, I had already poisoned her.

She managed once to rip out my fangs, but they were just starters. I look at my hollow self in a mirror and I can see the lack of anything caring reflected in my eyes. I will have my fangs back, but I cannot extract my venom from her soul.

Perhaps it is that she wishes to embrace the pain in her heart that I have placed there. Perhaps she desires to find a cure. Either way, after all this time, I am still the only one that can help her do either.

Eve trusted the serpent out of love for all things. For her love, he gave her understanding. From this has always come nothing but suffering. If she could do it over again, would Eve reject the serpent's gift?

I believe that my dear Eve would not.