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!”
Standing there watching him break; it was both a pleasure and a pain mixed into one. She wanted to relish in it, to continue seeing him snivel but just as with Grace as she could do was stand there and watch him cry. It rooted her, a twinge in her cheeks from muscles that were taut and ready for action but a brain that wasn’t telling her what to do.
Time ticked a bit as she stared him down before she tutted and looked away from him. Why she would go into these situations, look forward to them and then realize it was no longer fun?
“Sorry blue man but you no longer amuse me. Locking yourself up here in this fucking apartment like a loser? I’m going to go look for someone who can entertain me.”
Picking up a leg she kicked over some paintings, not to destroy them but just to make a mess and then made her way past him to the door.
Jack tried to reach out for her, but she brushed past him without even a second glance.
With a heartbroken whimper, the blue man slowly sank to his knees, hugging himself tightly as he silently cried. The wrecked paintings meant nothing. Katelynn had cut in and attacked his deepest insecurities – all the things he most hated about himself. He wanted to argue with her, to demand to know what had happened, to grab her and force her to stay so they could talk this out … but he couldn’t even move. His legs felt weak as water. His chest felt as if a giant, icy hand had squeezed his heart – it hurt to even breathe.
“K-Katelynn,” he managed to whisper one last time, “please … you’re everything to me …"
Jack Maple 