Liar

"Liar! Filthy liar! How could you!" she screamed. Tears streamed down her face, mingling with the blood seeping out from a badly cut lip. Her eyes were swollen, her hair bedraggled. She looked like she had just come from a battlefield.

I did not know what to say.

"Tell me what she said isn't true. Tell me! Tell me!!"

I looked at the ground and kept my silence. Nothing I could say would change what had happened. I was guilty all the same.

So she slapped me. Hard. I reeled back, my head ringing.

"So its true, huh. You just couldn't be bothered to tell me. Or maybe you just didn't want me to know?" She was no longer screaming, but her eyes were crying bloody murder. With her silent fury a wave of shame swept over me, my guts threatening to ice up.

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry? You're SORRY??!!" She slapped me again, harder. "Is that all you can say? You lie to me for three bloody years, and all you can say is SORRY?!"

I couldn't stand it anymore. I grabbed her hands before she could strike again.

"And what would you rather have had me do, lass? Told you?!"

"YES!!"

I looked at her pointedly. She looked back furiously, fustrated. "Damn it, you could have at least... At least...."

"At least what?" I asked quietly.

"I don't know! Said something! Done something! Anything!"

"You know I couldn't."

She collapsed, weeping. "Then why now, why now when tomorrow you'll be gone?"

I smiled bitterly. "I'm not the one who told you, was I?"

Silent, she sobbed, her face in her hands.

I knelt before her, and lifted her face with my hand. Her tear-streaked face, lovely with emotion. Her liquid eyes looked into mine, so deep I felt myself falling into them.

I touched her swollen lips with my finger. "At least now you know," I whispered.

She smiled, and teardrops fell.

"At least now I know."