Three Little Birds

The Conversation

His voice was full of pain and bitterness and anger. His grip around his hands tightened, halting the blood flow to his fingers.

"I begged him not to leave me, Liz. I pleaded with him. We were both crying. I hugged him and he told me he loved me. That he always had. And h-he kissed me. And then he told me he had to leave and I...couldn't stay there, I couldn't stay...I couldn't stand by and watch him pack up his life with me and leave because of someone he hated.

"I couldn't watch him leave me after he told me he loved me." He looked at Liz, his face pained and despairing. "Did I kill him, Lizzy? Did I kill him?"

"God, baby, no." Liz pulled him to her chest, wrapping her arms around him as his wound around her. They held each other and mourned, as if for the first time, over the loss of such a beloved young man.

"I feel like I killed him, Liz. I feel like the whole thing is my fault. If-if-if I had just have kept my mouth shut back then when I first told him I loved him.

"Or if I had been more sensitive or something, some fucking thing to make it better...but I just...left him...and then he left me anyway." Anything else he might have said was drowned out by the flood of tears that burst forth. "I didn't mean to kill him, Lizzy. I didn't mean to." His sobs increased and he hid his face against her side, the guilt and self-hatred no longer able to be contained.

Once he had calmed down, Liz pushed him gently back so she could look into his eyes. Gently she thumbed away any moister left and cupped his cheeks in her hands, as if he were a child who needed consoling.

"Mykee, you did not kill him." She thumbed away more tears as they fell from her words. "I know the guilt is immense, and the trauma of finding him will always be there, but, sweetheart, you did not kill him.

"He was hurt, and lost, and scared. That wasn't your fault, Mykee." She smiled in remembrance and sniffled, wiping her own eyes. "He told me once that you and I were the only real family he ever felt he had. He told me then that if anything should ever happen to him that it wasn't because of us. He was only happy when he was with one or both of us."

Mykel frowned at the undertones of what Kaiden had said so long ago. "How old were we when he told you this?"

"Oh...probably fifteen, or sixteen. It wasn't too much before he told us about his parents beating him."

Mykel nodded, thinking back to the last decade. "Had you ever had to talk him down before?"

She nodded. "Yeah, a couple times. Once when he was twelve...that summer you stayed at Grams...Mom and Dad weren't home and he came over. He was in tears and I just held him. He kept saying he should just die, that it would be better if he wasn't here anymore. I talked him down then. And once when he was older." Her voice was soft and she did not look at him as she spoke.

"I had to also. When we were nine was the first time. The second time I came over, unannounced...I just had a weird feeling...and walked in on him about to slice his wrist. He had a kitchen knife.

"There were other times, too."

Liz grabbed his hands gently in hers, causing him to look into her eyes. "I love you, Mykel. Please don't ever do something like that. I worry about you sometimes." She paused before, "Mykel, when are you going to let yourself be happy again? When are you going to allow yourself to love again? To be loved again..."

He shrugged and shook his head, breaking eye contact. "I...I'm scared, Lizzy. What if he thinks I'm betraying him? That I don't love him as much as I do...? I promised him that I'd only ever love him."

"Mykel, baby, you can't stop living because of a promise you made back then to someone who isn't here anymore. You deserve to live, Mykel, and his death, and your guilt over it...I'm watching it slowly destroy you.