An Inch Below her Mouth

Say goodbye to my daughter for me, John. I would've, but I can't. I never could. I hope you understand.

Looking at the note, at the sentence, he wished he could do more than bleed. His head was heavy, his eyes blurred by a red chrome filter. Everything was crimson and fading. He knew he could've said goodbye to her. He knew as he wrote the note. But he always had a problem with looking in her eyes, and he knew he wasn't capable. He was weak. And goddammit he wished he could tear his eyes off the last sentence. Asking John if he understood. He wouldn't. Nobody would. He was a fucking idiot for writing that, a fucking idiot for using a gun to do a rope's job. But then again, what else was knew? He had let her slip through his fingers. It was plain. It was simple.

He saw her face through the glass frame of the photograph. The birth mark that slowly ran up her chin and ended an inch below her mouth. He thought about how many times he had traced it with his hand, and he felt his fingertip grow warm with the thought of her skin, just like his. God he was so much like her.

He felt his face grow warm and wet as the blood soaked into the carpet and surrounded his head. It would be over soon.

He hoped she wouldn't be the first to find him. That she wouldn't walk in, see him and scream, or trip over his body, half of his head blown off, because she didn't deserve that. No little girl deserved that.

He could feel liquid building up inside of his eye, and all he saw was spots, dotting his vision and dancing across his pupils. He had no idea what he had done, just that something was wrong. He had missed something, he guessed, something crucial, maybe he had held the gun at a weird angle. But he had shot and he was still alive, and he was still thinking about her, so there was something wrong. Maybe it was just him dying slowly, but he felt nice and secure, his daughter loved him, he hadn't lost his wife, his father, his mother. It wasn't just him and her anymore. God he wanted it. It was right there, and he smiled as he played her smile again and again in his mind. It was right there and he would never have it.

He read the rest of the note.

I want you and John both to know, this has nothing to do with you. I'm not mad, and I'm not sad either, just a little lost. And I know it doesn't seem that way, and I'm sorry if this comes as a surprise. You are both the world to me, and I don't know how I ever came to lose that feeling, but I can't gain it back, and I think it's gone completely. I will always love you, and the way you look and the way you both are as people. I'm happier this way, and whatever the afterlife has in store for me, I will never leave either of you. I'll make sure of it. I'm sorry.

Love you to pieces, Theodore.

Goddamn.

He pulled himself across the carpet and onto the hardwood until he was at the base of the wall. He turned his body and kicked the plaster, shaking it. He kicked it once more and knocked the picture loose, and it fell to the floor and shattered in a spray of glass. He grabbed for the frame with bloody hands and held it close to his face, never loosening his grip despite the glass digging into his left cheek.

"Oh, god. Oh, god, my little girl. Grow up to be something better than me." He closed his eyes with the picture still in his grasp and smiled feebly.

"Just resting my eyes," he said, and shut them.