Explosions rang out in the hall. It was the dust devices I had prepared.
Raging flames burst towards the sky. Agonized screams came through the camera feed.
I gripped Lucas’s chin, forcing him to look at the mirror in front of us.
Then I picked up the bronze vase, smashing it against his body again and again.
Knees, elbows, every joint.
3:28 pm
<
Lucas passed out over and over. I calmly took adrenaline from the makeup kit and injected him.
Finally, he looked at me, his lips moving, his hand struggling to reach for me.
As expected of a lunatic. Even at this moment, he still stubbornly looked at me: “Did you…ever love me?”
Perhaps in a final burst of clarity, blood foamed from Lucas’s mouth.
He said: “You were willing to become family with me…willing to wait for me to come home…when I was sad you were sad too, when I was happy you were happy too…”
“How could you possibly not have loved me?”
I froze there.
The bronze vase slipped from my hand, clanging as it hit the floor.
I reached out and grabbed Lucas: “Are you saying that’s what love is?”
Infinite hope bloomed in Lucas’s eyes.
He thought that I had loved him after all.
Dying for love wasn’t such a bad ending for a lunatic.
I stared blankly ahead, then tears began to pour down like rain.
“Ethan, Ethan,” I sobbed uncontrollably. “So that’s what love is. So I’ve been…loving you all along!”
As I cried, the last glimmer of hope faded from Lucas’s eyes.
He listened to me repeating Ethan’s name over and over in endless anguish, and slowly stopped
breathing.
I walked out of the dressing room and up to the roof.
The sound of police sirens echoed through the valley. They had seen the livestream and were racing to this private mansion in the mountains.
I stood on the rooftop. Mountain winds whipped across my face. Below me were raging flames.
3:28 pm DDDD
<
Just like a blooming rose garden.
I took off the ring.
“E&R“.
It was his promise to me.
Ethan would love Rachel for a lifetime.
I wanted to throw it into the sea of fire, but in the end I couldn’t bear to.
Finally, I gently dropped it into the fountain outlet on the roof.
The ring sank down with a soft tinkle.
The water was fathoms deep. It would drift with the current, flowing through the city’s underground water system, into rivers, into the ocean. Diamonds don’t decay. Perhaps hundreds or thousands of years later, someone might find it, though by then the letters representing our names would be too
rusted to make out.
Like all unknown love stories without endings.
The wind blew my wedding dress. Just before the police rushed up, I leapt down into the sea of
flames.
Or perhaps it wasn’t a sea of flames.
It was just my rose garden.
In the rose garden, I hugged my teddy bear, lost in thought.
Ethan stood outside, waving to me:
“Rachel, when the roses bloom again, I’ll take you away from here.”
This time, I didn’t fiddle with the teddy bear, refusing to answer him.
I didn’t tell him, okay, I’ll wait for you.
I stood up and started running.
My skirt brushed past the roses, my hair flying in the wind.
I threw myself at him, hugging my love tightly:
“No! I want to go with you right now!”
The End –
