Break
by A.j.

***

It breaks me to not say anything.

So much of me is already gone. Victims of my fear, bits and pieces 
traded away for sanity. Or safety. Or even the passing logic that I 
might be doing something right. But this? This is different. This 
is a piece of me that I swore would never be touched. Not by this.

Show's how incredibly bright I am.

She never told me that I'd remember. Maybe she didn't know. I'd 
like to think she would have told me. I'd like that. That's why I'm 
a whole 60% sure on this. But there's that 40%. It's that damn 40% 
that makes me stare at her just a little harder.

Like me, she's owned. She's not free. Gloria may be with her 
family, but that isn't entirely true. Our lives, Claire's and mine, 
are made up of half-truths and shadows. An extreme case of smoke and 
mirrors with neither really knowing who's got the fog machine and 
who's painted themselves down with mercury.

Gloria is no more free than I. She's insurance. But she's got 
something I don't. Something I envy her for so badly I ache. Gloria 
has ignorance. She doesn't *know* that she's written down in 
someone's little file. She has no clue that her existence hinges on 
how well my friend can play these games. She's blissfully unaware. 
And there are days I hate her for that.

Like today.

I'd like to think Claire would have told me if she thought I'd 
remember. Actually, I'm fairly certain she'd never have injected 
Kev's RNA in my brain if she'd had even the slightest idea. Because 
in those chains of sugar and enzyme lay secrets. Ones that she 
definitely wouldn't want me knowing. I know her last name now. 
Well, the one Kevin knew. It suits her. Elegant. Simple.

I know other things too. Things that I wish I didn't. I know that 
she hates oranges. And that her favorite book is an oft-read volume 
of Kipling that she always kept in her top drawer during college. 
And I know all the sounds she makes when she cums, screaming, 
underneath a heaving body.

It's my final gift, you see. A final bit of damnation deeded me from 
my brother. Kevin the genius. Kevin the humanitarian. Kevin, the 
man who put his own brother under the knife and created for him a 
hell of which there are no boundaries. Because with this bequeathal, 
he's sold me deeper. He's broken the last lock on my soul and opened 
the door. He's handed this final bit of me to my Grendel and waved 
quietly in parting.

In this remembering, he's given me his love for her. But in the same 
instant, he's closed the doors of her heart to me. Because when she 
looks at me, she doesn't see me. She doesn't see Darien. Or a lab 
rat. Or even the cloudy gist of a man with whom she plays power 
games. Instead, all she sees is Kevin.

So my tongue is stilled while my brain and heart curse the skies, and 
the sea, and the dead. And in that dread time between the setting of 
the sun and its rise, my mind echoes with the words spoken by another 
who was lost and betrayed. One who tried to warn me. One who's 
advice I honestly thought I'd heeded.

I've grown with her. I want to touch her. And, God help me, I want 
Kevin's memories to become my own. The irony is, I won't. Not 
because I won't, but because I can't. And in the end, it's just 
another game I've lost.

-fin-