“You don’t have anything to say about this? Thought you wanted to talk.”
“Kind of speaks for itself,” he frowned, reaching out and picking up the leg gently. Splinters fell from the shattered end onto the table as he brought it closer to his face and examined it.
“Your room is a war zone, Xander.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“I’m serious,” she huffed, her eyes filled to the brim with sympathy. “No small wonder the Womb’s been acting the way it has with everything you’ve got pent up inside. You’ve got to find a way to let it out.”
“This is how I let it out,” he growled, gripping the wooden shaft hard until he felt the grains give slightly. “What else can I do? Nothing we say or do is going to bring her back.”
Cathy squinted at him, shaking her head. “You’d want to?” she said after a moment, her voice full of disgust.
He looked back at her, his face twisted into a confused snarl. “What?”
She moved forward, pulling out her chair at the table and sitting across from him. “You’d bring her back if you could? Because I wouldn’t. Not in a million, billion years would I wish Sara back.”
He did not respond, turning away only slightly at the mention of her name.
“She’s somewhere now where the Grendels and the Genblades can’t get her. Can never get her, no matter how hard they try. I miss her like hell... but I’d never be so cruel or so selfish as to bring her back from wherever she is now. Sometimes if you love something, you have to let it go, Xander.”
“Dammit, that’s not fucking good enough!” Xander shouted, throwing the leg across the room and denting the wall.
She jumped back in shock, standing up from the table again.
He drew back and punched her again, then got up, tossing her clothes onto her. “Pff. You’re not worth the trouble. Stupid whore,” And with that, he left. Went back down to his friends to lie and brag about what he’d done.
The killer began to lean on the blade, causing it to puncture the skin. Then, he withdrew it before it went in any great distance. He began to walk out the door. As he did, he turned and looked at her.
“You’re not even worth the trouble,” he said before he left.
Cathy lay on the floor in a pool of blood, crying, as she heard sirens approaching the house.
Not good enough.
Cathy twitched, her hands raised halfway to her face and seemingly stuck there. The words bounced around her mind like a rubber ball inside a small glass box, threatening to crack it at any point. After a moment, she turned from Xander but didn’t go anywhere, looking as though she wasn’t even completely sure where she was for a second.
Xander squinted, his nostrils still flaring and anger slowly melting from his eyes as he watched her shift uncomfortably. After a moment, his short, heavy breaths began to taper off and his features softened as he started to think again. He took one step forward.
She winced, then steadied herself. “Stay the fuck over there,” she barked, though her voice quivered slightly.
He stopped in mid-step, trying to piece together what had just happened. After a moment he turned back to her, his eyes turned up in pity. “God... fuck... god, Cathy, I’m so sorry,” Xander started, reaching out his arms to hug her.
She took another step backward, biting the edge of her finger nervously before she leaned forward and almost fell into him. Her lips quivered and shook as she tried to hold her tears in. It lasted only a moment before the memory of Grendel’s icy stare or the Womb’s raspy voice came screaming back again and hot tears started streaming down her face. After a second she pushed away from him, falling to her knees and still sobbing with a fierceness usually reserved for toddlers.
“Oh, Cathy,” Xander cooed, scrunching down and wrapping his arms around her. She resisted at first, then buried her head into the nape of his neck. “Oh, my beautiful Cathy. I am so sorry, I didn’t...” he stopped himself from apologizing, realizing that would only make him feel better about what he had just said. He pulled her head off his shoulder and forced her to look at him, holding her face in his hands as tears began to trickle down his face as well. “I love you, Cathy.”
She choked slightly, each breath coming in short gasps. She tried to move her head away from him, but he held firmly.
“I do. And you are good enough. More than. You’re one of the greatest people I’ve ever met. Anyone who says anything but is an idiot.”
“But you said,” she spat finally, her brow furrowing as the tears made her eyelids red and puffy. “You said it twice now, as the Womb and now. You said it.”
“I’m an idiot, too,” he countered, forcing a smirk onto his face. “I don’t think I’ve ever claimed otherwise.”
She laughed a little.
He took his hands away from her face, the clammy skin almost sticking to his own.
She did not turn away, just kept looking at him as she tried to stop her chest from quivering between breaths. “It shouldn’t be this hard to get over this,” she whispered finally, mentally stopping herself from getting worked up again.
“No, it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t have happened to begin with.”
“I think it happens more than we think,” she said, locking eyes with him. “And once it does you see the world different. Like when you go in a dark room and your eyes adjust, then you can see all the things in the dark. I
