Page 172 of Because I Killed Him
Now I love him.
The difference between comedy and tragedy is perspective.
—PROFESSOR JEROME,
GRANDMASTER UNIVERSITY FACULTY
CHAPTER 40
I once overheard Mom tell Dad that some people are born on the wrong side of fate. There’s no particular reason why it happens. These people don’t necessarily deserve the hand they’re dealt. Fate simply chooses them, like a lottery, except the prize isn’t money. It’s a curse.
And I think I won.
The curse is more than bad luck. It’s personal, as if fate picked me out of the crowd, held my gaze, and said:
You.
Yes, you.
Fuck you.
The elevator rattles beneath my feet as it climbs to Edmund’s suite on the fourth floor. Brassy jazz crackles from the overhead speakers, too full of swing for the devastation in my heart. Every note feels like mockery, and maybe it is.
I’m late again, for the third time this week. Our group study for finals started nearly an hour ago, and I should be thinking about civic statutes, neural consent protocols, or gene splitting. Instead, I’m staring at my Bond screen, at the image of Edmund and Charles that I’ve wished a thousand times I could change.
The photo is the only one I found of them together after days ofsearching through fencing archives and forums. It’s four years old, taken when Edmund was eighteen, and Charles was fourteen, yet the clarity is cruel enough to make the moment feel still alive. The two boys stand in fencing uniforms among seven other students, their eyes glinting with a cold, flat focus, like a warning line drawn between their fear and obedience.
At the center is their instructor, Julian Lake. Having built his reputation on fighting death duels, Julian is a legend in fencing circles. Some say he has over seventy victories; others insist the number is much higher. I’ve seen enough footage of Julian slicing through opponents to know the stories are true, but even if I hadn’t, I’d still believe them because he’s old. And you learn to fear the old man in a profession where most men die young.
On the fourth floor, I step off the elevator and walk slowly toward Edmund’s suite. I knew the similarities between Edmund and Charles weren’t just in my head. The way they fenced was too similar. I should’ve realized the truth sooner, but maybe I didn’t want to. Maybe it was easier to hold on to the version of life where I was happy.
I glance at the photo again and see only Charles. He looks small and youthful, nothing like the boy who charged me in the locker room and tried to crush my throat with his bare hands. His skin is pale beneath the harsh light, and his brown hair sticks damply to his forehead. That night, his eyes burned with a dark, vicious blue, but here they’re wide and raw, painfully childlike.
Beside him, Edmund stands taller, broader, and more grounded. There’s something protective in the way he holds himself, as if he’s already used to stepping in front of others, whether he realizes it or not.
Edmund and Charles share the same blood, the same instructor, and the same war behind their eyes. But they’re not the same, even if Edmund’s mother wants him to be.
When I reach Edmund’s suite, a Pinkie takes my things in the foyer. “Good day, Miss Waldsten. The others have come out of the sauna. If you will follow me.”
I trail behind the robot, hardly noticing my surroundings until we reach the bar, where everyone is freshly showered after the sauna. Charlotte and Jack sit side by side at the poker table, their ankles crossed at the sameangle. Jack reaches for the coffee pitcher, but when he sees Charlotte reaching for it too, he slides it toward her with a crooked smile. She pours a cup and passes it back to him, smiling in return.
Dickie is sprawled across the sofa, buried in a nest of decorative pillows as he works. Edmund, hunched over a table in the corner, is the only one who looks up when I enter. The blue glow of his Bond dims as his eyes meet mine, but it doesn’t feel like he’s seeing me. It feels like he’s looking through me, at someone else entirely, someone he’s only mistaken for me. And whoever she is, I can tell from the way he smiles that, to him, she’s beautiful.
“Is everything okay?” he asks.
The words stick behind the lump in my throat, and I have to force them out. “Yes, Edmund. I’m sorry for being late again.”
I move behind the bar and pour myself some water, trying to soothe the dryness in my throat. Edmund stands and follows. He uncaps a bottle of brandy but, instead of pouring, lets the cap fall to the floor. When he crouches to retrieve it, his hand brushes my ankle. My breath shudders as his fingers glide higher, lifting the hem of my dress enough for his lips to reach my calf. He leaves a trail of soft kisses along it, then looks up at me, smiling.
It’s the smile that used to comfort me, the one that eased every worry and fear. But the pain inside me now can’t be eased. It sits in my chest with a dull, drowsy ache, only to wake with an agonizing throb every time Edmund touches me, because I know the truth. I know who he’d see if he knew it, too, and she wouldn’t be beautiful.
Charlotte warned me once, on Edmund’s birthday, that he doesn’t know how to forgive. She said that when you hurt him, that’s it… he shuts down and walks away. I believed her then, but not with the urgency I do now. What I took from him was more than a mistake or a misunderstanding. It was family. And if someone had taken Vivian or Hillaire from me, I know I’d never forgive them either.
I reach out and let my hand trail along Edmund’s cheek to keep him from suspecting anything is wrong. He catches my fingers and kisses them before I slip away. Then he retrieves the brandy cap and rises from behind the bar, looking renewed, as if he’d thrown back a shot while crouched on the floor.
I join the study group, with the four of them focused while I only pretend. My Bond remains active, even though all I’m staring at is an empty web search screen. My body sweats as if it’s confessing something. The only reason I haven’t completely unraveled is the Florence Engine. I use the device constantly now. Every waking moment I’m alone, I sit with the interface open, shaping the jagged landscape of my emotions until I can feel something other than despair. Even if I’m not laughing, at least I’m no longer crying.
Thirty minutes later, Edmund and Jack break away to the fencing room to practice for the Mensur. The bar goes quiet, save for the faint hum of Charlotte’s and Dickie’s Bond projections as they keep studying.
