Her eyes. Her eyes pierce through me, chucking at my soul, ripping me into teensy little bits, until that’s all I am. All I’ll ever be. Broken. Her eyes are beautiful, so brown they look gold, but can be so, so ugly when she gets that look of frenzy. Of desperation. Of hurt. Like I hurt her. Things she’s said to me echo through my mind, each like a wave, drowning me over and over and over again. “You don’t know me.” “I can’t meet your expectations.” “I won’t add up to who you think I am.” Pulling me under. “I’m done with you.” “You mean nothing to me.” “Let go of me.” Stopping me from breathing. “I’m coming for you.” “I won’t rest until you’re dead.” “I hate you.” I’m drowning in my own waves of despair. And there she is. Her back is turned and I can see the long waves of almond brown flowing down her shoulders. From the corner of my eye, I see that a gun is resting in her hands. I can’t move. I’m in a trap. “This is not who you are,” I barely breathe. I need her to understand. I need her to be mine again. “Oh…” her tone hurts me. It’s sharp, sharper than the edge of a knife or the bullet in a gun. It’s piercing. Relentless. Cruel. “This is who I am. It’s always been who I am.” She turns around, slowly, and faces me. Faces me with those beautiful brown eyes. With specks of pure gold, but as venomous as poison. “You’re not a criminal,” my voice breaks. “No.” “You can be better.” “No.” “You just need to try.” “No.” “Vivi-” “You don’t get to call me that.” This breaks me, “I love you.” “NO!” she yells and grabs the gun, facing it towards me. I still. “You love who you think I am! You don’t love me!” “I-” “I tried to make you understand,” she storms. “But you’ll never understand!” “Please,” A fury ignites in her eyes. “You killed me.” And with that, I know nothing I say can convince her. She pulls the trigger. I shock awake, breaking out in cold sweat. The pain disappears whenever I wake up, but the memory of it is always there, a shadow of the pain that once was, a hole in my heart. I tremble and I glance at the clock. 2 am. Only two hours after I went to bed. I get out of bed slowly and imitate the motions of a sane person. At least, what a normal person does when waking up in the middle of the might. At least, I think. I get up and drink a glass of water. It doesn’t help the parched feeling that’s always in the back of my throat. It never does. I glance at my reflection in the mirror for a moment. The permanent tangles of my dirty black hair, my underweight figure that looks like I’m starved, the huge black circles under my eyes. I look terrible. I think of her. How she and I can look so similar but so different. The person who haunts my every nightmare. The whiplash explosion of pain every night when she pulls the trigger. ‘It’s all in your head,’ they all say. ‘All phycological’. It’s real. I know it’s real. Or at least, the pain is. I’m dying every night. Again and again and again. Never staying asleep longer than three hours at a time. She had always been, even when she was little, a strange child. She preferred alone time much more than to with other people, but I figured she was just an introvert. The thing that caught me off guard was how good she was at lying. And how quick she was to get furious and exact vengeance. No one was perfect, but she never did believe in forgiveness. Throughout her life, she was always getting overstressed. Seeing the shadows instead of the light. The desperation instead of the hope. Trying, but failing, to keep a hold on her sanity. It became too much for her. She broke. She soon left me, and when she did, she resorted to thievery. Committed grand larceny. She became a criminal. Only I knew it was her, though. I saw the signs and I just couldn’t believe what she did. I forced myself to confront her, to confront my Vivi. And she jerked. I dealt with it the wrong way. She shot me in a craze. I barely survived. And she ran. I don’t know what I was doing when I told the police on her. They found her. She brought out a gun and started shooting wildly. The police, in turn, did the same. As a result, four people died that night. One of them her. I killed her. I know it deep in my gut, with every action I do, with every word I say. An undeniable feeling. The guilt. The pain. The knowledge. I killed her. But every time I close my eyes, she gets her revenge. There used to be so many people who tried to comfort me. Who were there for me. But eventually… I became too much. My mood, my sleep, how I forced myself never to change. Because Vivianne has every right doing what she’s doing. Friends and family that have once been close left me. Say I’m insane. Say there’s no hope for me. I exit the room and go to the living room. I sit upright on the couch and turn on the TV with a random movie. If I’m lucky, it’ll keep me awake for at least an hour. More likely, fifteen minutes. Soon, I’ll drift off to sleep. And then I’ll be killed. It’s a continuous cycle I’ve got no escape from. But I deserve it.