Eternal

“You should have told me,” she says, “You should have told me you were bad for me”

“I couldn’t”

“You could,” she looks away from me, “You know you could have”

“It would have been all you saw in me”

I want to tell her. I desperately want her to know.

“You didn’t give me a choice,” she’s crying now. Not loudly, not with true sorrow, not with pain. She’s crying for anger. I do not blame her.

How could I tell her, there are no words I can find? No way to make her understand. She’s only just seen the surface. She still doesn’t know of the iceberg that lies beneath.

She’s staring at me now, waiting. I have no choice. I must try or I will lose her.

“This taint on my soul, I cannot remove it,” I start, “I’ve tried, by God Selene, I’ve tried,” my hands are trembling. I’ve never spoken these words aloud before today.

“How did it happen?” she asks me. As if it were a simple question.

“One-hundred and fifty years ago, a woman came to me. She offered me this life. I was a fool,” Something strange happens. I feel a wetness on my cheek. This is the first tear I’ve shed in a century. It feels queer against my pale cold skin. I consider it for a moment before realizing Selene’s gaze has not left my own.

I continue, “She told me I would be young, I would be healthy, I would be powerful. She said I will never have to want for anything. She told me she could make me this way”

“And you accepted?”

“Wouldn’t you!” I snap back, I don’t mean to, but I do. Emotions are different than they were before. I rarely feel them anymore. When I do, they are like a tidal wave crashing into my body. Anger comes on in a rage, lust in a magnetic force, sorrow in a deep pit in my soul.

Love, I thought I had lost love. I thought love would be replaced by these baser emotions. Over one-hundred years ago now, I resigned myself to never feel love again. Until I saw Selene dance.

She moved with grace like I had never seen. Her dress flew across the floor with elegant passion. Her feet swung wide and quick, while her hands moved with cheer and love. But her hair, that is what I remember the most. It gracefully followed her every movement. It was like an eerily graceful partner in her revelry. That was when the love took me.

I realize she’s still waiting for me to speak.

“I will never die, Selene, I will stay this way forever. I would move heaven and hell to grow old and die with you, but I never will. I should have told you, but I never could. I waited one-hundred and fifty years to find you. And I would wait it again. I will always love you”