I WAS GOD ONCE

OCTOBER 11, 5:59 PM, 1 DAY AND SIX HOURS REMAINING

        How? How did he find me?

        Yenly had never answered that question in life, and so Adam would never know now. He hugged his legs tighter. He have never told him, either, what he was. Sure, he'd called him freak, sinner, and monster, and devil so many times Adam had taken those in for what little of an identity he had left. A monster picked things up without touching them. A monster could feel the electrical currents of everything around them, touch them and not get burned. A monster threw a man from his vehicle, ground his face into the asphalt. Yes. That was what a monster was.

        The faucet continued to leak.

        "Edward?" He called.

        "Yeah?"

        Edward always sounded two steps away from a nervous breakdown.

        "Could-... Could you come in here...?"

        The bathroom door wasn't locked and so almost instantly, Edward was turning the knob, stepping in.

        "What's up?"

        "I-... I just," Adam reached, though modesty wasn't what made him do it, and closed the shower curtain. They were both men, adults, too. And they had shared headspace. What was closer than that? "It's quiet in here."

        "Oh. Oh, okay. Want me to stay?"

        Adam nodded, then realized Edward couldn't see that. "Yes, please." He muttered. Edward closed the toilet lid and sat. He'd undone his tie, partiality, but he still wore his white work shirt and black pants. The only comfortable looking thing he wore was a pair of old, blue slippers.

        "Yeah, yeah sure thing. You okay?" Edward's voice was soft, attempting to be comforting.

        "Yes. It's warm."

        "Good. We need to, uh, do something about your hair. It's nice and all-"

        "I hate it."

        "Oh, okay, great then. We can cut it."

       "But... The scissors... The Man- Yenly never let me touch anything like that. He said I'd do something..."

        Edward was silent a moment. Adam could smell the smoke by now, stale and thin.

        "Do you want to do something?" He asked. Adam considered this though the answer was quite obvious.

       "No." He said.

        "Then you'll be fine."

        Adam placed his chin on his knees, and sighed softly.

        He could feel Edward watching his silhouette from the other side of the shower curtain and he felt himself become uncomfortably aware of how thin and pitiful he looked. His wrists were like branches, things that could be snapped if he so much as slipped and braced himself with them. His hair stuck to his back and floated in the water.

        "I miss my mother." Adam said suddenly, mostly to himself. Edward was silent, perhaps unsure what to say. "I didn't get to say much to them the last day I saw them. My dad was at work. So I didn't get to tell him bye. I don't remember what I said to him the night before. My mom, however, she was home. Making my lunch. She was pregnant. Did you know that? I don't know what happened to the baby. I imagine she miscarried. I brought a lot of stress, going missing. That's not good for a pregnancy." He shifted in the water. It sloshed against the white walls of the tub. "The last thing I said to her was, bye, love you. At least I told her I love you, before everything. I don't remember if she responded. Of course she did, you know? But I never heard it. I shut the door as soon as 'you' came out of my mouth. I bet she hated that. Wondering if I heard her say I love you or not. The last thing I said was love you. Living with- or, I guess, living under Yenly, that was what I thought of a lot. That, and getting to say I love you to my dad. I should have said more that morning or- or maybe the night before. I should've left a note on the table for both of them or something. Sometimes my mom would leave notes in my lunch boxes as a kid. I never did stuff like that back. I never- I never-" He choked off, hiding his face with one hand. His mind hurt, suddenly, and he felt heat and water rise in his eyes. Tears dripped on his knees. Edward was still silent. He was not sure why he was telling Edward any of this, although so long had spent without anyone to talk to at all. The chance to go on about any of the thoughts that haunted him felt so relieving, it made him shake. Adam allowed himself to reach, and he felt the heat of the ashes fall from Edward's cigarette, unsmoked. "A... A teacher in my school told me to, live each day like the last. I never did, I should have but- I, I never did. I was fourteen! I thought there was time..!" He felt himself shudder, and he chewed his bottom lip, rubbed his eyes to draw the tears away. He did not want to cry. He'd spent so much time crying the last six years. He hated it. Finally, Edward spoke.

        "The last thing I told my dad before he died was go to hell."