Tasting the Lie

“You seriously have no idea why, Valerie?” Abel mutters, almost chuckling.

“I completely don’t understand, I- I thought we were more.” My breath is gone. My heart stabbed again once more, too many wounds and it’s bound to crack if it hasn’t already. Even the sound of my full name hits hard, knowing the shortened one filled with endearment is gone.

Why do I try so hard to face rejection? I don’t understand that either.

Why am I not enough? I don’t understand that at all.

My string of thought is cut when Abel steps back, and back, and away. He doesn’t care to explain why, I can feel my feet urging me to chase after him like I did with everyone. The air in this street is frigid, I notice it now because Abel’s proximity was keeping me warmer. What about me made him leave? Has he found out? And how long will that question repetitively ring in my head?

…Apparently not long. I can feel a click, a gun. I freeze as if the owner of the weapon has already asked me too.

“You never understood anything, did you?” That familiar ‘almost chuckle’ meets my ears as Abel’s voice accompanies it. What did I do?

“No.” I muster out.

“Val…” that ‘almost chuckle’ turns into a real one, “You have no idea how many people despise you?” My hands tremble, the cold quickly seeping into my brittle bones. The weight of his colder words presses down, making it hard to breathe.

“And what’s to despise?” I retorted, but it sounds more confident than I appear.

Abel's eyes glint with amusement, even utter joy. "You always saw what you wanted, Val. Never what was real."

I wanted him. So it wasn’t real? I’m just the fool who cried worthlessly in his strong arms when times got tough? The fool who confided in him like he was the last person with me on this earth?

“What wasn’t real?”

The barrel of the gun lowered slightly as he studied me closely, his observant eyes lacking the warmth his gaze usually held. “Why didn’t I pull the trigger two months ago?” he asks. “Why am I still standing here, wasting time?”

The answer forms in my throat before I can stop it. “Because you care about me.”

A silence thicker than the air around us fills the street. For a moment, I think he might deny it—Abel, the ghost haunting me even more than my past does, the glistening blade in the darkness, the man with no care at all for me. But he does not deny. Not even close.

He sighs. “You’re not wrong. And that’s the problem.” I can feel his gaze on me expecting my face to light with recognition, however it does nothing of the sort. ““I was sent for you. Orders were clear.” He tilts his head. “You made them...complicated.”

“Y-you’re an assassin?” The words feel foreign on my tongue, twisting it up and rendering me speechless after.

But what baffles me even more is the nod he gives me after.

“You were kind when you didn’t need to be,” I whisper. “You listened. You saw me. Even when I didn’t want to be seen.”

“I saw you too well,” he says, almost a whisper, maybe even regretting that action. The wind slices between us, as if in an attempt to cut the tension. Once my string of thoughts reconnect, I wonder.

What’s my purpose in life? I don’t understand it. I’ve failed so many times at love that I fear I’m already dead.

“Do it,” I say. “If you have to. I killed him and I might never regret it”

The words that slide out remind me of his brother, the one that stood in my way, the one protecting Abel from me, a monster. So I let love take control, and drove that dagger through his chest like the monster I am and forever will be. I taste the lie in my mouth although it hasn’t been said, so foul and nauseating, yet I swallow it down

But he will never know the truth, all he has known is that his blood coated my hands once. That comforts me enough to regain my lost composure. Now I watch his face, his response, the thing I dread most and question even more.

His eyes flicker with something—pain, hesitation, maybe even love—but his hand drops to his side. The gun never rises to meet my forehead again.

“I can’t, Val” he says finally, voice raw and breaking like an old telephone. I take in the sweet sound of my old nickname greedily. “I can’t do it,” he says. “Not to you. Not anymore.”

The words cover me, each letter shielding me from the sudden cold droplet of rain landing on my cheek and from any pain I could feel; maybe I do understand something now. Yet I’m burdened to still think I should acknowledge that this isn’t all about me right now.

“T-They’ll come after you,” I mumble. “The ones who sent you to do this.”

He looks up at me, jaw set, eyes on mine and blazing their blue shade like raging waves. “Let them.”

He closes the space between us, his hands trembling now just like mine but not from cold — from everything he’s been holding back. “I fell for you Val, way too far.” His hands holding mine in the fake gentleness I remember but now mixing with the truth and our reality. The proximity of him gives me the warmth I had already forgotten about and longed for in the cold.

Suddenly the line of thought falls into place in my mind. I understand it all. “I did too, and now I did again. Enough to die for you. But more than that… enough to live.” My breath catches after releasing that sentence straight from my thoughts. It’s foolish. It’s reckless. It’s doomed, probably.

But it’s us. And as I step into him, wrap my arms around his warmth, I know this is real — not perfect, not safe, but real.

Somewhere behind us, the city exhales. And somewhere ahead, a thousand unknowns of the world’s foreboding grasp await.

But for now, we walk forward. Together. And I allow my lips to meet his and breathe him in until I forget how to breathe.