Journal excerpt:
I don’t have soft hands; I have strong hands. Adorned not with rings but with scars and callouses. My knuckles are enlarged due to an unhealthy habit of cracking them. To some my hands offer no comfort, they are dirty, hands of a gardener. Hands not belonging to an upstanding member of society. But to her, my hands fit in her hands and that is all that matters.
These hands would never, could never be enough. 

The greenhouse had been left in a state of disrepair. The glass panes cracked as vines choked out the roses and climbed up the walls. The pool was the only well-kept item left, an indoor one with 1960s pink tile. Ten feet at the deep end, filled with well water.  The water was clear, the poison invisible; deadly to anyone other than Eugene awaiting a victim.
He could never bring himself to return to the house. Never, for chance that she may return to look for him there. For chance that she may look for him anywhere in France. He left on a train just as he had left her on a train. Finding comfort only in journals, and tremendous amounts of jasmine tea. Hoping that the memories would cease existing, yet sensing they never would.

His skull made contact with the floor cracking the tile. Blood trickled from the slash in his brow as he closed his eyes praying to a god he never believed in.
“Where have you imprisoned her?!” The butcher growled into Eugene’s ear, hands firmly smashing his cheek against the tile.
His veins coursed in the silence, feeling the grip of the butcher’s hands wane. Eugene feels the man pull back, and finally, locks eyes with him. The butcher’s skin was pellucid now, revealing the substance beneath, intertwining with his blood.

“You bastard.”

Eyes filling with tears, remaining silent, waiting. His veins coursed, the butcher loosened his grip. Eugene rose to his feet a look of panic in his eyes as the butcher fell to his knees.  “You’re dead, no matter where you go monstre vert.” 
“Je suis désolé, I’m so sorry.” 
The butchers dying expression imprinted on his mind he tears himself away to find Adelphine.

“Adelphine? Adelphine!” He ran through the halls, tripping over the upturned end tables, slipping on the shattered glass. His mind darted ten yards in front of him, hissing such darkness that the anxiety within him felt like a live and thrashing thing.

Was she safe? God, was she even alive? 

Rushing about the house, pushing the morbid thoughts from his mind.

She is here, she is safe, there is time.

  Every room reflected the struggle that had occurred, broken furniture and shattered glass yet bare of bodies. He stumbles into the glasshouse, tears blurring his vision, veins pulsing beneath pallid skin. “Adlephine!” Her name clawed its way out of his throat in a shriek.
Uninjured she lay on the cold brick floor just beneath a table of seedling flats. The glass of her tea cup lay scattered around her. “Adelphine!”
Hands, reaching out pulling him closer to her fragile body before his nature fails him and he falls to his knees inches from her. Hands that could never touch her precious skin. Stirring in another room, steals him away from his despair.
I have to take you away from here. I have to get you away from here.
Tripping into the kitchen he takes a cloth from the cabinet. The only way to carry her out is to separate the skin. He slips his charcoal trench coat on with a flourish. Carrying her like a child ready for bed, she remains unconscious. The sun pollutes the night sky as the stars slowly fade.

The door of his gremlin creaks open as he gently sets her in the back seat.  Sliding into the front seat starting the engine and letting it idle as he stares ahead at the house.
Exiting the car he sighs, jogging back to the house. Tripping in the front door, wearily looking around before grabbing a tattered leather messenger bag from behind the door. His stomach lurches as he steals one last glimpse of his disheveled living room.
“Goodbye, my refuge.”
He runs his finger-tips over initials engraved into the door frame; E.F.M. His fathers.

Sliding back into the leather seat of the car, he releasing a sigh letting the pressing matter of Adelphine’s safety distract him from his sorrow. 
Paris is a four drive from home, she would awaken by then.
He couldn’t bring himself to another goodbye and his heart would not withstand a fight. The rear view mirror tilted to reflect her ivory face, he stared into the back seat.
He made his way to Village bourgeois a mere twenty-minute drive away. He had set his mind to Paris but knew he couldn’t take her, the train in bourgeois was the only way. 

“Excuse monsieur.” Eugene reached out to a trainman fitted in red uniform. “Could you give this, this, to the Madame in seat 12, at the next stop, now she sleeps.” He held out a crumpled piece of paper with a quaking hand. A suspicious look in his eye and slight hesitation the trainman began to respond before Eugene interjected “Please. I, I love her.”

“But of course monsieur.” The trainman answered with a smile. The whistle blew as steam seeped onto the platform on which Eugene stood. The side door of the train sliding shut. Watching a train pull out of a station leaves an individual with a decision; chase the train and catch it to the next station or watch it pull away with your feet grounded on the platform. Eugene would never catch the train to the next station because he could not chase it.

Ah my Paris. She most certainly is mine as she has stolen my heart; perhaps even my soul. I assume you are there by now, half drunk and quite possibly as in love as I was my first night alone in Paris. Your lovely little Mary-janes are begging to be taken off. Those tempting heart shaped lips stained with the lipstick of the day before. My love, do stop taking yourself so serious. The best artists have been created from drunken fools and lovesick fiends. I know that leaving you may now seem cruel but it was done for your benefit. I wish you not only success but safety. There is much that you do not understand and so much that you do. I leave now myself, for a new home and eventually faded memories. You must lose yourself before you can find what you are looking for. And to lose yourself, you must lose me.
Our love.
This life.
All cliché bullshit.

Always, Eugene