THE BEAST ─ five hargreeves

EPILOGUE

[ 000 ]

e p i l o g u e

[ an excerpt of
the letter written
from zara to five ]

1963

—I SUPPOSE THE trouble with me was that I always wanted things too much. Wanted them, too, the easy way, the greedy way.

I wanted you, Five.

I wanted you in a silly, childish way. I realize that now. I wanted you the way a little girl wants a goldfish in a bag at the carnival. With burning, pointless intensity.

We might've gotten on well together. Yes, very well. But I do not think, Five, that you would have ever forgiven me for the person I am, and I could never apologize for it. So it is better that things ended the way they did. Quickly.

Oh, Five . . .

I am going away tonight. Ralph is going to take me away from here. Odd—after he asked me to marry him I never really thought of him much. After I'd gotten what I wanted he didn't seem to matter anymore.

Isn't it funny? I always get what I want. I wanted an adventure and the Commission sent me to you. I wanted my mother dead and you gave it your best shot. I wanted someone rich and lovely to give me all kinds of wonderful things and now I've gotten that, too. It sounds awful, I know, but it's the truth. The truth is awful sometimes.

I suppose the only thing I've never gotten is you . . . You—You—You . . .

I will not say I loved you. I do not know if I did love you, or if we had known each other longer I would've come to love you. I'm not sure, really, what love is. And I think you knew that. But I know sometimes I will remember the way you kissed me on the fire escape and wonder, perhaps, if there was ever a moment in time when you loved me.

I am sorry for everything that has happened between us. And I am even more sorry for everything that never did.

Were we meant for each other, Five? No, I do not think so. I think the two of us would have devoured each other. Perhaps you knew that from the beginning. You've always been so very clever. We would have been broken into a thousand tiny shards that would never be put back together again, and I do not think, Five, that either of us would have survived it. It is better that things ended the way they did. And it is better that we shall never see each other again.

Because if I saw you again, Five, I do not think I would have been able to stand it anymore . . .

I am rambling now. The truth is that I am not sure of any of it—life—death—love—hate—desire—loss. There is only one thing I am sure of, and it is that knowing you has altered the shape of my soul.

None of it matters, does it? Only you . . . and you and I will never be together again—we are each dead to the other . . . and in doing so we've come to the end of our story . . . the end of any story we will ever have together . . .

In my end is my beginning—that's what my mother used to say. But what does it really mean?

And just where does our story begin?

I must try and think.