Em

 

I opened my eyes to a dinky apartment I hadn’t set foot into in almost seven years. It was a small thing, just barely more than a studio. It had a bedroom and one large living room with an attached kitchenette. For how close it was to central downtown Chicago it was practically a steal though, though thinking about it it still would have been impossible to afford alone. In the living room was a large curved 4k TV and a Xbox One X, the newest console when we were still living here. Surrounding the TV were two fancy gaming chairs and a small coffee table. The apartment had a nice view with wide clear windows. Thanks to its position on the thirteenth floor we could see over the tops of many of the surrounding buildings and when the light was just right and the smog minimal we’d even be able to get a glimpse of Lake Michigan. 

 

Across from the TV and the furniture was a little dining table that we had to fight to fit into the elevator and then lug over to our apartment, struggling not to scrape it and damage either it or the hallways. It was all dark wood and perfect for sitting there as it rained and having dinner together, or sharing a cup of some dark and bitter coffee in the early morning before work with her.

 

Right now she was sitting there sipping at one of those cups of coffee while a steaming cup was across from her waiting for me.

 

Thunder boomed outside as the rain picked up and the building howled as wind tore through the cities tight streets far below us, creating wind tunnels strong enough to blow an unprepared tourist off his feet.

 

I heard the ringing of water dripping steadily into a pan from a leak in our dingy little kitchenette the landlord was always coming up with excuses not to fix.

 

“Let’s talk, baby.” Her voice was just as I remembered it, though now it seemed to have a bit of added exhaustion inside it. As though it had been awhile since she had good sleep.

 

“Ok.” I croaked out, staring at Esme for the first time since she was murdered, my heart beating in my head louder than the thunder outside.

 

I walked over to her unable to think or say anything. The ground was covered in shag carpeting that should have been soft but when I walked across it I couldn’t seem to feel anything. 

 

I pulled out the chair we’d bought together in a set for just a little over fifteen dollars at a garage sale on the north side of the city after driving around for hours looking for a game-shop selling the newest final fantasy to no avail.

 

“It seems like it’s been hard.” She spoke softly, sitting across from her I could see dark bags under her eyes and she seemed to close them and hold them that way for a couple of seconds longer than needed. It seemed she was trying to catch whatever kind of rest she could in those few seconds. 

 

I nodded, tears slid down my cheeks as I struggled to form words. I wanted to run, jump over the table and grab a hold of her and never let go. I wanted to scream how much I loved her and how much I missed her but I was struck paralyzed in her presence. Unable to form words let alone the will to move.

 

Most of all I wanted to say how sorry I was. To tell her about the nights I stayed up crying into a bottle of alcohol. Of how she was always at the corner of my eye, waiting for me. How her shadow haunted my every waking moment. 

 

All I could do was squelch out a sob and nod for her, lowering my head to the table unable to even look up.

 

My wrists burned and my mouth tasted of metal and plastic.

 

“It’s ok…” She whispered as her hand ran over my hair. I  could remember how it felt, I knew how her hand was supposed to feel in my hair but I couldn’t feel it now, all I could see was our shadows merging against the tapestries on the walls, lit and formed in the blinding lightning outside. “I loved you too Em but-” Her voice cut itself off as I looked up to see tears pouring down her cheek. “You weren’t supposed to join me like this…” She forced the words out as I felt my heart stutter over a beat and my chest ached with a pain so extreme I had to bite my cheek to keep from letting out a scream.

 

The metallic taste in my throat became overwhelming as I looked over and saw the sleeves of my shirts blotting into a dark red.

 

Right. That’s why I’m here.

 

I forced myself to ignore all that as I reached out slowly and grabbed her hand. It felt spectral, teasing that my hand would slide through if I lost focus for just a second. “I’m fine…” I pleaded with her as the pain fell to the background and the tinging of the pot and booming of the thunder seemed to grow louder in my ears. “I want this. I need-” My voice choked as I tried to tell her everything that had brought me here without voicing any of it, just begging her to understand it in my eyes. “I need to be with you…” I let my tears fall to the table as I held eye contact with her, her eyes were bloodshot telling a story of how she’d been crying for a long long time. It hurt my heart but perhaps not as much as the familiar scent of her shampoo that reignited a yearning I was only just starting to forget.

 

Esme held my hand tightly resting her head against mine before suddenly letting go of me and standing up so fast her chair tumbled to the ground. “You’re-” Her voice was shaking with rage, the kind of rage you can only really feel for those you love. “You are so goddamn selfish!” 

 

I tried to ignore the pain in my heart unconnected to any kind of trauma my body suffered. I stood up slowly and tried to reach out to her. “Baby, hey if this is about the boy-” 

 

She waved her hand to silence me and turned to face me, her voice growing in volume as her anger grew. “I don’t give a shit about the boy, I care about you Em! You were happy, you were finally moving on! Of course I want the person I fell in love with to be able to grow past me! How petty do you think I am?!”

 

I felt my tears dry up as irrational anger replaced them and I scowled furiously. I tried to talk but she silenced me once again. “No. For once I want you to just stay quiet and actually listen to me.” 

 

Her hands were shaking and her voice was unsteady, she seemed as if she’d collapse at any second but she held on nonetheless, though after a few deep breaths her voice was quieter the exhaustion from before was much more evident.. “I don’t understand you Em. How could you just… end it like that?”

 

I gave her a second before I replied, this time when I reached out to her, my hand passed through hers, as though we were worlds apart despite standing in the same room. “I…” I struggled to find the words as my wrist burned again, blood was now dripping down onto the shag carpeting painting it red. The air was suddenly so dry and dusty despite the storm raging outside. “I was just so alone Esme… You left me. James left me. I’d been manipulated and hated and-” I shook my head and turned away. “I just couldn’t handle it anymore.”

 

I felt her anger start to erupt again before she took a few deep breaths and calmed herself down, her hand was resting on my shoulder and I could smell her familiar citrus and watermelon shampoo, as her warmth seemed to wrap around my body. “Do you know when we first met I was scared of you… Intimidated by you.”

 

I shook my head but couldn’t find the words to respond, so she kept talking. Her voice was whispering the words in my head so I kept my eyes shut and tried to tune out everything else and just focus on her.

 

“At the time you were just another gamer girl like me. We were basically the only other girls gaming out in the open in the city. All the guys treated us as if I was just a piece of meat. At best I was a fetish for them, the wild gamer girl with tattoos and piercings to be oggled buying games for her boyfriend. Even if I won they still didn’t care, they’d just claim they let me win. Sometimes if I won it seemed their delusions would get even worse. One time I caught this group of guys following me home after a tournament, I ended up jumping into a gay club just to get away from them. They tried to go in but the bouncer kicked them out…” Her voice was quiet as she seemed lost in the memory.

 

“When I saw you though… You didn’t deal with any of that. When you played a game you were something else, it wasn’t that they accepted you, it was more like they were just so intimidated they couldn’t imagine trying that kind of stuff. When you invited me to beta-test Tactical_Respawn with you I was so surprised I almost rejected you just on habit. The idea that you would even notice me was ridiculous. I was just… Esme. Just a quiet gay girl gaming to pass the time.”

 

I tried to tell her that she was never just ‘Esme’ to me but for some reason I felt I couldn’t interrupt her right now. That if I did I would lose her forever all over again. 

 

“When we first met James at that tournament I was happy. I hate myself for being happy. He was a monster even back then but I let it go because someone was finally seeing us together. I had someone who actually knew us that I could show you off to. Someone to see how amazing the love of my life was and how completely and totally you were mine.”

 

She reached over to my cheek and slowly turned me around to face her before continuing talking. “And that was wrong Em… that isn’t love.” 

 

I felt like someone had jabbed a dagger through my chest, I wanted to run away but she held me in place with her hands. “I’m not saying we were bad together. I loved you then and I love you now but what we had wasn’t healthy. For god's sake Em, we were together for two years and our families didn’t even know! I’m not saying I wanted an after-school special coming out story but didn’t we both deserve to be public with who we were, and who we loved.” 

 

“I’m-” I tried to apologize but she gently placed her finger against my lips. 

 

“I’m not blaming you I just… I want you to understand Em… you have a chance to do it right again, but you need to accept your past… our past. Both the good and the bad.”

 

I started to reach out to her but suddenly felt my heart clench again and I felt a loud scream tear through my throat as I stumbled to the ground coughing up something chunky and metallic. “No… No!” I finally stood up and screamed my denial.

 

“We were together! We were happy! Did all of this really mean nothing?!” I pointed at the room around us, at the furniture we pulled together when barely making ends meet. At the shitty Chicago skyline we only could ever really enjoy once a year when the conditions were perfect. At the time, the life we lived together before our respective careers really started to take off.

 

“Your… Your a lie!” I denied her when she tried to reach out to me. “My Esme… My love-” I was shaking my head desperately, scared to touch anything. Suddenly terrified of the world around, of the shame that the blood falling from my wrists seemed to magnify with each beat of my heart.

 

I stumbled back as I wiped at my mouth but couldn’t rid myself of the taste of iron and bile scared to touch anything until I finally felt a strong slap hit my face and I fell backwards to my knees, I looked up and  my eyes locked onto Esme standing over me with a passionate fury burning all around her. “Stop being a damned child Em!”

 

I tried to talk again but she cut me off with a powerful glare. “Let’s talk frankly. I tried to do this the easy way but if you're going to make me watch you pathetically waste away what was stolen from me then I’ll speak my mind and force you to listen to me no matter how many times I have to drill it through your thick skull.”

 

“You think I’m not real? That I’m not your Esme? Your goddamn right I’m not your Esme. I’m nobodies! You know who I am? I’m the pathetic streamer who fell in love with a super-star gamer until my brain was bashed out of my skull to such a degree that they were still picking chunks of the pink shit out of the carpeting weeks after! I’m the idiot who prayed day in and out for far, far, too long that my love was going to suddenly open up their eyes and realize just how far into denial they were over their identity.” She stared up at the ceiling before swearing with a loud shout and slamming their fist into the wall so hard it went straight through the plaster, leaving a hole. “I’m the cursed moron who hoped that you would love me just a tiny portion of how much I loved you, but I was just never good enough…” 

 

At some point her voice started to get weaker, I thought she might fall down and cry but she stood strong none-the-less. “You claim that you loved me. You seemed so happy to see me but please… just let me see you be honest for once in your life… tell me… if you loved me why would you be so willing to kill yourself while the man who murdered me still walks around free? Why would you throw away the life that was stolen from me? You said you killed yourself because you were exhausted and alone but be honest… Weren’t you just guilty?”

 

I suddenly felt a shame that I couldn’t express tear the air out of my lungs, suffocating me. I tried to plead for her to stop talking but I couldn’t form the words.

 

“You were still friends with James for how many years after I was murdered? You know the police were looking to talk to him but you didn’t offer up his location.” I tried to look away but found I couldn’t move my body freely, the weight of the world was pressing down on me and I was paralyzed in place staring at her bloodshot, crying, truly exhausted eyes. “When he told you my family didn’t want to talk to you, did you fight him on it? Or did you just accept it, eager for the chance to run away?” I wanted to deny it but we both knew the question was rhetorical. I wouldn’t get the chance to lie to either of us again. We were both dead and the honesty that was stifled for too long between us was all that could breathe in the air right now. “I guess I was lucky enough to consent our first time. The boy didn’t even get that. A text message? That’s the best you could do for him. You didn’t even stay there long enough to press the send button before you ran away.”

 

I thought I saw a sad look of disappointment in her eyes but she took a breath and smothered it. 

 

“I’m done with you Em. I love you. Even now. I wish I could stop.” there was a yearning in her voice that promised me that wasn’t an exaggeration. “Everytime I think, I can move past you and just let go of everything before me, I remember a good day. A soft kiss. A pleasant hug. Then it all comes back and I’m just left with this frustration and bitterness.”

 

I tried to apologize but the pounding in my chest told me that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She didn’t want revenge either. She wasn’t telling me to go out and catch James myself; she was asking for something much easier and more honest than that. 

 

To do what she can’t.

 

I looked back at the apartment door and felt the pressure in the room lighten up a little. 

 

I forced myself to speak, my voice was croaky, the pain and frustration built up inside it leaking through. “I’m-” I stopped and shook my head. “I do love you.” I spoke over her as she started to interrupt me. I forced myself to stand up and grab her hands. “I’m kinda an idiot Esme. I get lost into games and forget about the world around me. I always thought that was what made me special but when I met you…” I shook my head and tightened my grip on her hands. “I knew for the first time there was more to life than that. My parents died when I was a kid and my family basically forgot about me as soon as I moved out. I just drifted from one thing to another not caring, that’s why I loved video games so much. Games are beautiful and simple, you just go to a place and do it, you don’t have to worry about time limits or emotions or understanding or being left behind. You just do what the system tells you because you know it will always work out exactly the same as last time. So when I found you and I realized for the first time in my life that there was something outside of the game actually worth caring about I guess I panicked and just didn’t know how to show you what I felt.” 

 

I shook my head as I felt tears streaming down my cheek, there was something in my chest that seemed to lighten up as I expressed emotions I didn’t know I hadn’t given voice to before. “I hated myself when you died. I despised myself for surviving. I knew in my heart that someone attacked you because of me even if I didn’t understand why or who. How could I have dared to stay alive when you, the person who actually mattered, died. I cursed you and drank myself into a stupor but that was just because I couldn’t-” My voice choked as I pushed the words through. “I couldn’t give voice to what I actually felt. I wanted to keep fighting. I wanted to stay alive, I know I’m stupid and selfish and cowardly but how can I not be when my only reason for fighting was gone? I told myself James was there to help me but I knew he was just manipulating me...I just was hoping if I held on long enough he would kill me with his own hands. That way when I finally appeared before you I could say I didn’t have a choice.” I shook my head and gave a forceful bitter smile. “How awful am I? I was going to lie to you even when I was dead.”

 

I leaned forward and gave her a soft kiss on the cheek, trying to express the pain in my heart. “I don’t want to lie to you anymore Esme. I loved you and I can’t apologize for wanting to be with you but-” I turned away from her as I tried to not see the pain in her eyes. “But I can’t stay here. You're right. Of course you're right. I need to go make things right with Leo. I need to know he’s OK. I need to stop running away.

 

I stepped through the door as I wiped at the tears on my cheeks and felt darkness overwhelm me. 

 

The aching of my chest and the burning sensation along my wrists is the only thing I can feel.