Broken, Battered, and Bruised // Kay

In my silence, I could feel him talking to me. Ale. The boy that I feel in love with by the lake here in twelve. I remember it like it was yesterday.

We stood near a tree that looked like it was dying, because all we ever found in twelve besides coal was death.

I had a book in my hands, something I spent more money on than I should have. However, I was sure that this was something that he would have loved.

I had been spying on him for days, looking at him as he sat in the town square, an apple in his mouth and a book between his reality. The moment I got the courage to talk to him, he was gone, disappeared into the ether with nothing but an apple core left in wake.

The next day, I saw him again, this time another piece of fruit lodged in his hand, but not one that I knew the name on. This time I ran into him before he dispersed, and before I could say anything, he walked away.

I did catch a smile on his face though.

The next couple of meetings were the same, and for once, I couldn’t believe that he was right there in front of me, looking onwards, as he also tried to figure out why he was here. I didn’t even know at this point.

However, I pulled the book from behind me and gave it to him, planting it in his hands before turning so red that I had to walk away for just a moment.

When I turned back around, he was gone.

But I knew that this was not the end of our encounters.

---

Because this became a regular thing all the way up until he moved in together. Alejandro was a boy when I met him, but then he turned into a man before my eyes, and I could not believe it.

Each week I would bring him a new book, and he would laugh because half the time they were books that he had already read.

However, he accepted them just as much as he accepted me for my simple mind.

I could never comprehend his mind. The brain that laid in his skull, untapped. Untouched.

He was beautiful, inside and out.

The first night we spent together, we were in my shack, laying on the rickety bed that probably would have collapsed if I didn’t put support beams under it.

We were both surrounded by the dim light, and we were probing each other’s mind in order to find the meaning to our existence. The meaning to why we were here right now, in this damned place.

We told each other, and there would always be a better place in the world as long as we had each other.

And I believed him.

---

Until it was ripped out from under us.

---

And I watched him on that projector, training and reading, and trying to stay above it all.

I never thought we were going to be separated like this. The games shoving a wedge between our relationship.

Me, hoping and praying that one day I was going to get him back. My eyes were glued to the screen, and when I was told to look away so I could get back to my job, I simply walked out.

I did not need people telling me what I couldn’t do. What I couldn’t feel.

I loved him, and I was going to watch him die.

Even though I prayed. Prayed to whatever was out there to keep him safe. I hoped that our love was strong enough. Strong enough to make it past this horrible obstacle that separated us from each other.

But in a flash of white light, I watched him perish before my eyes. And that is when I shut down.

---

And then he came back for a moment. Like it never happened. Day three in the games and Ale was standing there, in front of the girl that went with him. However, he was not the same boy that they both knew. No.

He was a killer now, and that was how I never wanted to see him.

I listened to the words that he said, and I wondered if there was ever going to be a chance for us to relive the days that we once knew.

But we weren’t.

He was gone, taken from me three times now. Once at the reaping, once at his death, and now, once in his death.

And I would forgive no one for that.

---

And so I sat there in front of my shack, a stack of books next to me and a fire going. Ale was a soft soul that I knew I never could replace.

I haven’t talked to anyone in days, including his family, who treated me like I was family. I hated ever minute of it.

But mourning needed to be done in private.

So with each book I picked up, I opened it and began to rip out pages of them, one by one, I threw some more into the fire, hoping that bits and pieces of Alejandros soul would be able to live again in the air as the smoke released itself.

And with each page I watched singe into the fire, I hoped that he would be able to feel the love I had for him, burning alongside him.

---

And then I heard a crack in the distance, and for once, I felt like nothing. Like this was someone who was here to send me on to a place unknown.

Like someone wanted to reunite me with my lost love.

”Whose there?” I said into the darkness, hoping that it was someone who was up to no good.

So I could die in my misery, and find my love in my death.