“You know, Dorothy, a lot of things have happened since you and I first met.” Clouded eyes stared, unseeing, up at the ceiling. “So very true, Miss Relena.” The same admiring voice that I always use. I’m beginning to think that she can hear the underlying and barely concealed condescension. She stares at me, her perfectly contoured eyebrows furrowing in thought, before she returns to studying the texture of the ceiling. “Hm,” she murmurs, biting her lip. “I’ve been thinking a lot these past few weeks.” You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t be allowed to think. “You have?” “Yes, I have.” I wait for her to say more but she offers no forthcoming explanations. “About what?” She sighs softly and brushes her bangs out of her face. “I don’t know. You. Me. Us. Everything, really.” Pink tongue flicks out to run across her lips. I watch - mesmerized by the motion. “Well do tell,” I say. I’m surprised by the genuineness of my voice. I watch her exhale slowly, closing her eyes briefly before reopening them. “To be honest with you, I’m not really sure that you want to know.” I probably don’t. I can probably live without ever knowing what she thinks and be perfectly content. “Tell me,” I persist anyway. It seems like the thing to do. She straightens her back and crosses the room to sit in front of me. Our eyes meet, and I can tell from the shine in them that I’m going to regret this conversation. That I really won’t like what she is about to say. “I…” Her voice fails her, and she clears her throat before restarting. “I…I think that I’m in love with you.” Everything stops. Duo’s words echo in my head. You must want something else. Her heart, maybe? Although I think you already have that as well. So I do. Maybe I’ve had it all along. Relena is talking again but I can’t listen. I can’t focus in on her words. My mind is too busy reeling from her first blow. So you must still be with her for a reason. You must want something else. Yes. I suppose that I must. Her heart, maybe? Maybe…Maybe I’ve wanted that this whole time. Maybe it’s all I ever wanted. Crashing. Burning. Foundation crumbling. A fire rages inside me, starting in my brain and spreading downwards. She throws her arms around me and buries her face in my shoulder. I sit stiffly in her embrace. “I don’t know how it happened,” she says, her voice muffled. “I…I used to hate you. But…I don’t know what happened. Now you’re all I think about. I’ve fallen in love with you and I don’t know how.” She kisses me suddenly, and I let her. She must see this as acceptance because she’s smiling when she pulls back. I want to hurt her, wrench her still-beating heart out of her chest, for making me feel so odd and confused. Fool. Fool, fool, fool. But who? Me or her? “You know, Dorothy, this used to be a game. You and me. One big game. But it’s not anymore. It stopped being a game a long time ago, after the war ended. It’s something so much more now,” she says softly before snuggling back into my arms. “I love you.” I make a desperate attempt to crush her in my arms but I find that I can’t. My arms won’t function, only lie limply around her body. But she’s wrong. The game - that beautiful game - didn’t stop after the war ended. It continued. If anything it intensified. And I was winning, as I normally do. I always win. But it’s over now, with her nestled in my embrace, thinking that I love her too. It’s over. And I lost. …one big failure of vision… I’ve lost.
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