I saw the angels dying.
Just bleeding out into the sand...
I tell Raven everything I can remember about my life because I'm sick of the feedback loop my mind loves to create. I do it because there are moments I can't actually remember.
There are moments I need to recall.
If I keep it all in, I might just explode. It's nice having someone near me who listens and understands. Someone who doesn't judge me.
Someone who believes in me even when she shouldn't.
That's the quality I believe is righteous. But maybe it's foolish to let loons like me think I'm not crazy.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm even a god. Who knows? I could be a devil...
Nevertheless, I tell her the parts I know, recounting how my father ran away when I was young. There was no clear reason. No letter to me or my mother.
One day I just woke up, and he was gone.
I thought I was over the betrayal, but as I tell her my life's story, I realize that everything I do is a reflection of his absence. Leaving home and partying too hard, rejecting civilization completely... it's all because of my anger toward that one man.
When things fall apart, they fall apart quick.
I tell Raven that my mom died of heartbreak, but that's not entirely true. She died when I was twenty-three because she couldn't afford to pay her bills. Couldn't afford to eat without my help. And when the stress finally got to her, and I was in no financial position to save her life.
I watched her die in that hospital bed.
It was my fault, I tell her.
Mine.
"Families are never easy. But it's not your fault," Raven says.
And I can see in her eyes that she means it. It's not some half-assed response. She's truly sorry for me. The first person to ever feel that way, perhaps.
I lean into her temple, kiss her cheek, and take in her scent before kissing her again. She is all things good and plenty, but there's no time to enjoy it.
I keep talking, even though I probably shouldn't. I've said so much that, to anybody else, I probably look like a neurotic wreck. But her eyes beckon more words, and I just spill it all.
"Years after, I lost my mind. That's when the visions started," I say.
"How?" she asks.
I shrug and bite the inside of my cheek. "It happened after college, I guess. All of the news started to get to me. Rising sea levels. The climate. War never seemed to end. All of it just... broke me. I couldn't take it anymore."
She puts her finger against my lip, and I kiss it lightly. "You're not pathetic. You know who you are, Ash," she says.
"Yeah? Who am I?" I ask, afraid to hear her assessment.
"You're connected to this world in a way that I believe no one else is," she says. "You're a god. You've always been a god. And all of the terrible events of your life have led you to this moment."
"They led me to you," I say.
We both saw the picture of Lucifer and I. How it even exists, I still have no idea. But as I stare at the lines on the road, I know that it must worry her to no end. Am I really a god?
Or am I a demon?
It pisses me off that she shakes her head, but what she is about to say is probably right. She's always right, but damn, am I hurting right now.