Epilogue

“Two, please!”

I nearly had to yell over the din surrounding the ticket booth. As the woman handed me and Diana our tickets, we were boxed in on all sides by excited teenage girls. On our left wrists— underneath the matching friendship bracelets— we were given yellow paper wristbands, which were almost as good.

Arm-in-arm we marched— jabbed— our way through the crowd, until my stomach pressed against the cold metal stage divider. We looked at each other, unable to stop the infectious grins and laughter.

Finally, Diana and I had ended up where we were always meant to be— in the front row for My Chemical Romance. 

After Christmas, Dad had used whatever black magic he had to convince Mom to let me stay with her for a couple months. It was nice enough— I got a tan from all the days in the sun, doing fuck-all with my homeschooling program. But I missed Diana, even though we called everyday. I could hardly notice the transformative power of nature all around me, I was so focused on the next time I would hear her voice.

And when I wasn’t dreaming of Diana, I was having nightmares.

Once warm weather returned to New England, I came back the prodigal son. I cut my hair to near-nothing in the bathroom sink. I got rid of all my dresses (some of which I burnt). I called Diana my “girlfriend” in secret. I scrounged up all my allowance, every scrap in the piggy bank, to bring her to this concert. Just the two of us. 

Our fingers intertwined as we waited. We shot each other sly smiles as the speakers squealed harsh feedback.

Diana was wearing half of myself— my eyeliner on her face, my jacket around her waist. The scar around her neck was ridged and shiny, framed by her black shirt collar. She leaned in close to me. Her long lashes brushed my cheek.

“I never noticed— your teeth are awfully sharp.”

“Of course,” I said. “All the better to suck you dry.”

She laughed, a dry titter that distracted me as the band took to the stage. But I had eyes for only one thing. Diana laughed and laughed, her hair swirling like it was underwater.

I grabbed her arm, gripping tight.

“That wasn’t a joke,” I said. “I destroy everything that’s mine.”

“Oh, but I love it!” Diana giggled.

The music began, that first piano chord hit. Like a wave, it washed over me from head to toe. My fingertips prickled. I became aware of a pressure, an overwhelming weight against my chest. The crowd screamed in sync.

Diana continued to smile at me, her face tilting this way and that as if in a photo shoot. My fingernails drew blood.

From the stage, Gerard Way took his mic and screamed, “Wake up you dumb bitch!”

Of course.

I lay on my back in a black void. The pressure I felt had a form, two thighs that straddled either side of my waist, a long red kirtle pooled between them.

“Did you really think it was over?”

Ophelia leaned over me, pressing the heels of her hands into my heart. She looked down at me with my own face, ghostly pale and glaring. 

My words wouldn’t come, stunned into silence by terror. Underneath us, the ground was cold and growing wet.

“Wh. . .?”

“How could you do such a thing,” Ophelia continued, her eyes blazing, “to someone who loved you?”

I swallowed. “She— she didn’t—”

“Don’t lie to me,” she snapped.

I shut my mouth.

Ophelia continued to press down against me, as if she could pierce the skin. Her face fell, long hair escaping down her shoulder.

She said, “You’ve broken everything. It’s all ruined. Did you think you could just walk away?”

I’d hoped I could, more than anything. Eris was dead— story over.

Ophelia moved slowly. She wrapped gentle hands around our neck, thumbs pressed against the esophagus.

“You’ve halved us,” she said. “In one fell swoop. You could’ve been the one. You could’ve lived forever! But now. . .”

Her voice broke. Her eyes glimmered with angry tears. 

“Now she has to find us some other way.”

Fear shot down my spine. I shuddered in her grip. Ophelia held on.

“No— no, she won’t! She can’t! I— I killed her!”

As I struggled, Ophelia’s expression broke into a wicked grin.

“Oh, you really think so?” she said. “You think such a passionate soul, hunting us for a thousand years— you think she would give up just because the flesh has died?”

She was starting to truly choke me. I wriggled and gasped like a beached fish. My ears became privy to other noise; wind rushing through the cattails, owls hooting in the trees.

“There are things we will never understand,” Ophelia said. “A delicate balance that you fucked up. Souls are sticky, and they never die. Eris is still living— in the cracks of your walls, in the silt and sand. In everything.”

“Shut up!” I screamed. My body moved with sudden strength to buck her off. 

I stood up, dripping with river water. Ophelia was below me, her veil drenched. She stared up at me, shaking. She opened her mouth to speak, so I kicked her.

Underneath my boot, her nose crumpled. Ophelia fell backwards, her face ugly and bleeding.

“Don’t ever talk to me again,” I said.

Ophelia sat up. Her bloody nose dripped down, running red streams into the river. Rivulets of water ran slick down her forehead. She reached a quivering hand towards me. I slapped it away.

“Why do you hate me?” she said. “I’m you.”

She stumbled to her feet, her hands curling fists into her skirts. I stared at her and set my jaw. Behind her, the leafy trees were fluttering with crows.

Something manifested in my hand. Something solid and cold. As Ophelia approached me again, I swung.

It was a knife— a big butcher knife, straight from the kitchen. Ophelia screamed as it slashed across her eyes. I grabbed her as we fell. We splashed together into the dirty river water, her back to the rocks. Now I was the one in control, straddling her in place, pressing into her heart. Then stabbing it. Then stabbing again— over and over, until my arms ached and our blood coated the knife from blade to hilt.

“Shut! Up! Shut! Up!”

Ophelia’s weak body shuddered with every attack. Blood and tissue spilled forth from the gash in her kirtle. It oozed, hot and slimy, bursting out from the pressure. I panted and panted, wiping my face, as Ophelia stilled underneath me. Her eyes, already rolled back, grew glassy and vacant.

Finally, I stopped to catch my breath. I squeezed my eyes shut, overwhelmed by the noise.

When I opened them again, Ophelia was grinning at me with her smashed face, her teeth blackened. Her voice was like a bell.

“There you are, my love,” she sang. “I’ve missed you dearly.”

I rolled over and— in the real world— fell from my bed onto something soft.

“Oof!” 

Diana woke with a jolt and kneed me in the gut. My breath escaped me in a childish whine. I hit my bedroom wall in a loose pile of limbs. 

Huff. . . huff. . . “Lauren?”

My room was pitch black; even the glow in the dark stars couldn’t pierce the gloom. All I could hear was Diana’s panicked, but slowly receding, breathing.

“Y-yeah.” I rubbed my head. On all fours, I began to crawl over to my desk. 

“Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you?”

I pulled myself up, and flicked on the lamp. “No, no. I’m good.”

The dim light dazzled my eyes for a flash. As soon as the words left my mouth, I became hyper aware of my state— waking in the dead of night during a casual sleepover, covered head to toe in anxious sweat. My head ached, and my heart had yet to calm itself.

Diana was sitting up in her sleeping bag. She didn’t look much different; that oh-so fashionable dark bags under eyes, pajamas sticking to wet skin look. Her wide eyes trailed my lanky form.

“You’re not,” she said.

I let out a huff of breath. “I promise.”

Diana disentangled herself from her covers, abruptly business-like. She grabbed a blanket from my bed, and Pinkie off my stand.

“Let’s sneak out,” she whispered. The blanket was wrapped around my shoulders and the pony pushed through my fingers.

My face cool from a trip to the bathroom sink, Diana’s backpack on her shoulder, we slipped out into my backyard. It was the quintessential summer night; wide-skied and bug-ridden. We sat on the grass, the backs of our heads resting against the house’s siding.

In the fall, Diana and I would be going our separate ways, to different high schools. Though he hadn’t said as much, I knew Dad couldn’t afford four more years of private school. I’d be going to Hilltop, a perfectly respectful public institution despite the mounting number of bodies to its name. Diana’s mom, though. . .

It was an ongoing battle, I knew. Diana had begged her many times over, but no way was Mrs. Colón going to send little Diana to the place that had “killed” her other daughter. Instead, Diana had been enrolled in a private Catholic high school on the other side of town. 

It wasn’t either of our faults. And though it was irrational, I couldn’t help but fret that this was going to be the end. That all the bonds we’d forged would dissolve with time and distance, and this was our last chance to love each other fully.

Through the chain link fence, shadows danced over the cracked pavement. I twirled a dandelion stem in my hand.

“I had a nightmare.”

Diana nodded. “You were— screaming, before you fell on me.”

I flushed in embarrassment. “Really? What did I say?”

“Gosh—” Diana fidgeted, digging her fingers into the dirt. “There weren’t really words. It sounded like you were being murdered.”

My stomach clenched. I turned to look at her, biting my tongue.

She looked at me in anticipation. Her curls bounced in the breeze. “What?”

I explained to her what I really had dreamed— my encounter with Ophelia. With myself? I watched the whole time, as her eyes widened, her hands rose to cover her horrified face. 

By the time I was done, I was crying. Dammit.

Diana patted my back as I crouched over, sobbing. She passed me her water bottle, because of course she’d remembered her water bottle. My headache began to pass. I wrapped my arms around my knees and, without thinking, began to gnaw on Pinkie’s hair.

“I’m— sorry. . .” I said.

“For what?”

For a lot of things, too many to say in only one night. I started simple. “For waking you up.” 

She sighed. “I wasn’t sleeping, anyways.”

Slowly, I looked up. The distant apartment windows dazzled my eyes, yawning over Diana’s head. She gave me a small smile and began to pull the plastic strands out of my mouth. They pulled taut against the soft inside of my lip. 

Any embarrassment I might’ve felt was bowled over by a sudden wave of longing.

“I’m going to miss you so much.”

Tears welled up in Diana’s eyes. “Me too.”

“You’re—” I was all choked up. “You’re the only one who understands.”

Dad tried. He really did. He kept me from getting in trouble, he got me into therapy. But Diana— she’d been there, she had the scars to prove it. We were both hurt. She’d understood that I was hurt before I had. If only—

I said, “I wish— sometimes I wish I could keep you with me forever. But. . .”

“Yeah,” Diana said. 

“Hey!” I slapped her on the knee. “You’re not supposed to agree!”

“Oww. . .” She rubbed the spot.

Oh god, I was doing it again. Hurting her. 

I dropped Pinkie and buried my face in my hands. It was a bad thing to want, I knew. She wasn’t supposed to accept it. I wasn’t supposed to accept it.

Diana crept closer to me.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I know you were just joking. Nothing— nothing lasts forever.”

It was just a dream. It had to just be a dream. But here I was, shaking and crying again. When I looked up, Diana was on her hands and knees, her face inches from mine.

I didn’t want to be like Eris. I didn’t want to want the same things as her. I didn’t want to love like her— with force, with passion that will rot into terror. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I wanted to let Diana choose. I wanted to be able to let her go with grace.

She put a finger on my chin, lifting it so our eyes met.

“We’re together now,” she said. “Let’s make it last.”

“Five years?”

“Ten.”

I grinned. “Twenty.”

“No takebacks.” She winked.

Something warm and sweet bloomed in my chest. “I could kiss you.” 

“Then do it,” she said. 

So I did.