“Oh I don’t know..?” she mused as she tapped a finger on her chin, seemingly relaxed and like none of this was hurting her in the slightest. “How can I tell it to you so your little brain understands? You always did say you weren’t a smart man and now it seems like I can really see it.”
Walking past him and toward one of his paintings to admire it for a moment, she ran her hand along the top of it – she remembered this piece. He had painted it for her; it was her while walking Stella though they were both small to all the details around it as if someone were watching them from far away.
She punched her fist through it, destroying it. “I’m. Leaving. You. I don’t need you or love you. Is that clear enough for you?” Looking at him, her smile remained on her face.
The blue man cringed, feeling the blow just as hard as if she’d punched him instead of the painting. He felt as if he were breaking inside, crumbling, being smashed apart with every word she threw at him. Jack bit his lip, trying desperately not to cry.
It didn’t work. Tears stung his eyes, and began to run slowly down his pale cheeks.
Through the cold, aching fog of misery, however, Jack noticed something. Katelynn’s eyes … they were hard and glaring, a shocking change from her usual softness and warmth, but they were also different. There was a golden gleam that had never been there before. He was sure of it; after all the time he’d spent gazing into his beloved’s eyes, he couldn’t miss it.
“… S-something is wrong with you.” His voice was a hoarse whisper. “Y-you’re not Katelynn.”
Tossing the ruined painting aside as it were just garbage – and to her it really was – Katelynn let out a laugh. “But of course it’s me silly man. All of my memories, all of my past experiences; it’s all mine. I remember how we met, what a pathetic sniveling man you were. When you proposed to me in the park under the stars and lanterns; the first time we made love on top of the hospital roof; how you left me all alone for that long month after my mother was killed in that car accident without word from you!”
Her voice was rising now, the mirth no longer apparent in her eyes. Her new, twisted self was recalling those memories with new eyes, the pain of some of those moments intensified as if she had been physically cut.
“You didn’t even bother to use a pay phone! Someone’s cell phone! Anything to check up on me while I hid away from the world, alone and confused! Nothing. You didn’t even care. Well guess what? Now I don’t care about you. So this is my goodbye.”
Her golden eyes were hard as they stared at him, cold radiating off her – which she would have if she still had those powers from months ago.
The tears came faster now as Jack crumpled under the verbal assault. Everything Katelynn (and he no longer doubted it was really her) was saying pierced right to the guilt and insecurity he’d been feeling for months. He’d left her alone, cut off from the person she needed most … and now she’d realized it, and it was coming back to rend him.
“I-I’m sorry,” the blue man choked out, tears shining in his green eyes. “Katelynn, I’m s-so s-s-sorry. I shouldn’t have … If I could … Please, don’t go!"
Jack Maple 