Chapter 9,000
"I told myself I would never get this far."
"Why did you do that?", Sara asks, innocently.
Her face is tired and worn. But it is still so beautiful. Her green eyes and framed my her flaming red hair.
I had hurt her. The one person I care about. I hurt her. I killed her Thomas. Why? It's complicated.
"Because I don't want to hurt you.", I tell her, bracing myself.
"You have never hurt me. I think you are the one person I can trust.", she says, gently.
She wraps her arms around my neck. I put my arms around her waist and hold her.
She thinks it was an accident. She thinks that he skidded on the bridge and fell off. But that isn't what happened. I made him go off the bridge. I wrote that he would fall.
I wrote this world. I wrote Sara into existence. But I can not control her. I am not her master, and I do not want to be.
The problem is that she started to date Thomas. I hated Thomas from the start. He was nice to Sara, and gave no one else reason to doubt him. But for some reason I hated him. I knew that it was unreasonable and mean. But then I realized something. I was jealous. I was jealous because I had fallen in love with Sara.
I fell in love with a character, that I wrote. She didn't even know that I existed.
When they got married, part of me died. I was utterly crushed. But there was nothing I could to. But then I came up with a plan. It started out innocently, but it has turned into something twisted and deadly.
I did something that I shouldn't have done. But I don't regret it. I wrote myself into the story. I wrote myself into Sara's life. Then I killed the guy in my way. I wrote out Thomas's death.
It was time to come clean to Sara. I know it is. She deserves to know everything. She deserves to know what has happened to Thomas. She deserves to know what happened to her husband.
I pulled away from Sara, and sigh.
"There is something I have to tell you.", I say, cringing at the thought of what I have done and will do.
"What is it?", she asks, frowning at my odd behavior.
I realize with a sinking heart, that she is concerned about me. She is worried about the man who murdered her husband. Something in me snaps. I can not let her feel anything towards me. I disgust myself. I don't want her to love a murder, even if that murder is me.
"I did it. I did everything. I ruined your life.", I scream, in a sudden fit of disgust and anger.
"What are you talking about? Ty, you are my bestfriend. You haven't ruined anything. I know that Thomas would be so happy that you are taking care of me.", Sara says, trying to calm me down.
I see Thomas's face as he sees me on the bridge. The look on his face betrays the knowledge that he knew that I love Sara. He knew that I was the writer. It became clear to him, when he died.
I shut my eyes, wiling the image of his floating corpse out of my mind.
"Ty, what is wrong?", Sara asks, laying her hand on my arm.
With a noise like a moan and a wail, I tell her. I tell her everything. I tell her that I am the writer. I tell her that I wrote myself into her life. I tell her that I murdered her husband. I tell her that I wrote her life.
As I talk her face changes, her hand falls away from my arm. She sinks onto a park bench, near where we had stopped our walk. She begins to cry.
That was the hardest part for me. The words fell easily enough from my lips. Words are the only thing I have. They are what got me into this mess. But the confession was a relief to get out. But the relief is short lived.
Her tears pierced my very soul. Every drop that slid down her cheek seared a hole in my heart. I was in unending agony over what I had done.
"Ty, you can't mean this. You wouldn't.....you couldn't....kill..", she says, choking on the words.
Her tears were flowing down her face, so I can't bear to look.
"I am sorry, Sara.", is all that I can say.
"You're sorry? You're sorry? That doesn't fix it, Ty. You ruined everything. I was happy in ignorance. I didn't want to know that you were the writer. I don't want your affection. I want my husband back.", she says, her sorrow turning into anger.
When she talks of wanting her husband back, she collapses once more into tears.
Crap. She is right. I have made everything worse. I shouldn't have told her anything. But I thought that my sudden disappearance would hurt her. I convinced myself that she had come to care for me. I was wrong. I have no idea what all my mistake has cost Sara.
"I thought this was what you would want.", I say, helplessly.
My world is crumpling around me. I have destroyed what was once my paradise.
"Just leave me alone.", Sara says, bitterly.
I back away and leave her to her sorrow.
I stare at my computer screen, where our conversation is in 12 point, Times New Roman font.
I leave the computer, unable to look at it. But unable to unplug it, unable to leave Sara forever.
I walk around the city of Chicago for hours. This was my home, but it is also the setting of Sara's home. She lives here. Herapartment that she shared with Thomas and their daughter, Elsie, is just around the corner.
Elsie.
A sickening dread fills me. I run back to my apartment and there I sit at the computer. I begin to type. I have no control over my fingers, as the right out the events that have taken place in my fallen paradise.
Once I left Sara, she cried for another hour. Then she went home. Thankfully, Elsie was with her grandmother that night. Sara walked up the stairs to her room.
I am crying now, my fingers heavy with the realization of what is to come.
Sara walks calmly to the steel cabinet next to Thomas's side of their bed. Her calmness is unnerving. Her face is void of all emotion but two. Hatred and sorrow are not permanently etched onto her face.
She unlocks the cabinet with a key. Takes out a small, sleek, black handgun. She raises the gun to her temple.
"No.", I whisper, hoarsely.
My fingers fly over the keys. I am powerless to stop them.
"No.", I yell.
The gun fires once. Sara's lifeless body collapses to the floor.
She is gone.
My fingers are still on the keys that have brought so much destruction to this beautiful woman's life.
I once saw myself as a kind of god. I was the wonderful Ty, who gave her life, a family, a good job, everything she wanted. But I was her Lucifer, who gave her death, her husband's corpse, a unearned job, and nothing that she needed. I took away all that was good in her life, under the illusion of helping her.
I wanted to die. I wanted to find a gun and kill myself, just like Sara did. But I can't. Because in my world of terror, there is a little girl. The girl is with grandma right now. But I have to make sure that she doesn't find her mother's body. I have to take care of the girl, who was left behind. I have to make sure that what happened to her mother, never happens to her.
I will do this, by doing what I can for the girl. But also letting mistakes happen. By not making her crush like her back, so she can find the boy she needs, not just the boy she wants. I have to let go of control and power, that is what drove me to kill her father. But I can do somethings for Elsie, the girl left behind.
I hesitantly begin to write.
A neighbor heard the gun shoot, and called the police. The police find Sara's body. They call Sara's mother, who tearfully informs Elsie,t hat she will have a sleepover at grandma's house tonight. Elsie skips around the kitchen, not sure why Grandma is crying in her room. Doesn't she know that sleepovers are fun?Three years later, I sit down at the computer to check on Elsie.
I write myself into the story, wondering if this will be my last trip.
Elsie is on the swings at the park. Her fiery red curls are escaping the woollen hat that her grandmother insisted she wear. Elsie tosses that hat away, her green eyes dancing with mischief.
"Hi, Elsie.", I say, with a sad smile.
Elsie often wonders why I am always so sad. I know not to make the mistake I made with her mother. She has no idea that I am the writer or that I killed both of her parents.
"Ty.", she says, with a smile.
The smile is just like her mothers. My heart aches at the sight of it.
"What is new?", I ask her, sitting on the swing next to her.
We talk about school for a while, and then she gets really quiet. When she is silent, it means she is thinking about something. Finally, she speaks.
"Ty? Can you tell me what my mom was like?", she asks, softly.
If my heart ached before, now it stopped beating altogether.
"Don't you remember?", I ask, sorrow filling my soul.
Elsie shakes head, tears filling her eyes.
"I remember Daddy, because I have pictures of him. But Grandma won't talk about Mommy, or show me pictures of her. I don't want to forget. Everyday I feel her slip farther away from me.", Elsie cries.
I pick her up, off the swing, and set her on my lap.
"You won't forget her completely. You know why?", I say, after a minute.
Elise shakes her head.
"Because you look just like her. Do you know that?", I say, brushing away her tears.
Elsie shook her head again.
"You are a lot like her. I knew her, when she was growing up. She caused all kinds of trouble for your grandma.", I tell her.
"What did she do?", Elsie asks, smiling a little.
I tell her that her mother would climb trees to hide from grandma. That her mom hated math, but loved literature. That her mom meet her dad, when they were working at a coffee shop together. That they got married two years later. That her mom loved to laugh. That fall was her favorite season. She loved tea, but couldn't stand coffee. That her dad loved coffee. That her dad teased her mom about hating coffee, but worked in a coffee shop. That her mom smelled like vanilla. That her mom read her Where The Wild Things Are and Goodnight Moon, every night. And most of all, that her mother loved Elsie more than anyone else in the world and would be so proud of her, that she couldn't see straight.
Once Elsie went home, with stories of her mom to fill her heart. I go back to my home."Goodbye, Sara.", I say, quietly.
I unplug the computer. I watch my fallen paradise disappear foever.

          The End