“I see my assassins failed to kill you,” he says, a slight smirk on his face. The scar above his left eyebrow lifts with his expression, and he looks slightly...impressed? 

“Try harder next time,” I say, reaching into my gun holster. A slight smile graces my face too. He eyes my hand and holds up his hands in surrender. 

“Let’s not do this. Talk to me. How did you get past all of the people I sent after you?” He takes a seat at the booth closest to mine, cushions covered in cheap, fake, red velvet. A small light hangs above, casting a golden glow on him. The light washes over his figure, illuminating his hair, a slight shine in his dark chocolate locks, but shadowing his eyes and underneath his facial features. 

Of course, he’d be hiding where we first met, the small bar just down the street from our headquarters: hiding in plain sight. It’s only fitting and something only he would do. To manipulate me? I never know anymore. It infuriates me knowing that these past years I’ve chased him across continents, from jetplanes to five-star hotels, through dark alleyways, and for what? Only to find that he was right under my nose the whole time, building his headquarters right below our bar.

He keeps his hands raised and lowers himself into the seat, keeping his eyes fixed on mine the whole time. His eyes, as dark and as mocha brown as they’ve always been, almost hypnotize me, magnets that grasp my gaze and don’t allow for a glance away.

“I’m special, I guess,” I snicker, rolling my eyes, my hand still resting on my gun. 

“Put the gun down. Seriously Linds, I’m going to die by the end of the night, so can we at least have one last conversation?” The smug expression he had when I arrived has dissipated, and all I can see are sad, desperate eyes, the ones I used to stare into when I told him I loved him. He crumbles the careful front I put up for myself once again as I stupidly, slowly rest the gun on the next booth over, settling in the seat across from him. Reckless. He makes me reckless. Still, I keep my hand inches away from the gun, allowing its cool metal to brush my fingertips.

“How did we end up like this?” I ask with a soft sigh, my chest slowly buzzing with old remnants of butterflies. I feel defenseless even though he’s too far away from my gun to be threatening. My old love for him sparks fire once again. Fire mingled in ice shards of hate, a glowing orange slowly melting them. 

It’s funny how love and hate are so closely intertwined: red rose petals surrounded by the thorns suffocate the flower’s enticing vibrancy.

Hate and love. Even when we first met, we competed, here, sitting at the bar. Our eyes would flit to and away from each other, taunting and playful. Who could persuade the bartender for more free drinks, who could attract the attention of more people, we were in competition before we even spoke a word to each other. 

“I taught you well,” he laughs, avoiding my question, allowing his eyes to shine like they once used to. Nostalgia almost forces me to fold over in nausea, a sudden wave of pain elicited from that familiar dazzle in his eyes, the playful spark. Is this a joke to him? 

I think back to the first time he taught me how to shoot a gun, supporting my arms with his, my body on fire from his touch. 

“Just like this,” I turned my head to see him squeezing one eye shut, focused on the bull’s eye in front of us, hitting it square in the middle. That day, after over thirty missed attempts, I left feeling defeated. He watched me and chuckled slightly. I felt better with him right next to me, offering comfort and strength in the form of stupid banter and silly insults as my aim slowly got closer and closer to the bull’s eye. 

Now, I never miss.

He knows this now as he shifts uncomfortably in his seat, picking his cuticles as he senses my demeanor change. A little sigh escapes me. Even though he’s so different, he’s still so much the same. 

“This has been…” he searches for the right word, “fun.” He reaches out to caress my hand, but I jerk back at the touch. A little hurt, he recoils, his eyebrows furrowing, an indent forming between them. “Honestly, though, I thought that I would get to you first. I didn’t think you’d be the one to kill me.” 

“Yeah, well, time has a funny way of changing a person, doesn’t it?” I eye him skeptically, doubt weighing in. What does he want out of this? Is he armed? 

The question alarms me for a second, but easily, just like he used to, it’s like he reads my mind as he answers my question. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I just want to talk to the most important person in my life before I die.” He laughs in a hollow tone. It occurs to me that maybe he’s sad because he finally...lost. He was never the best at accepting defeat, especially when I became better than him at things like shooting. 

“And why would that be me? We’ve been trying to kill each other for two years now.”

“Because even after this all started, you were always the target, the end goal, for me.” Another wave of pain washes over my heart, splashing into every artery and heartstring I have. At the same time, something else ignites in me. He started all of this, he was the trigger, so why is he lamenting it all now? 

“You’ve made my life quite interesting,” he smiles, “I always had something to plan for, whether it was our first date, our first anniversary, or how to kill you. I guess I’m a sore loser, though.” Everything goes quiet. The silence stretches between us, an invisible stream of memories darting back and forth, gnawing at our already bleeding hearts. Our eyes never leave each other, holding the last bonds that link us together, the only aspect of each other that still survives. We both have new haircuts, new clothes, new jobs, new friends, new lives, but our eyes, our eyes are still the same. 

He runs his eyes over me, taking in the injuries I’m carrying. The new, raw red gash on my cheek, dry blood caked around it, the bruise on the right of my chest, half exposed by my ripping black v-neck and black cargo jacket, his gift for me from our first Christmas. Knowing that he’s watching me causes a reddish glow to rise to my cheeks, and I want him to feel bad. Really, really bad. 

“These past years have been something else,” I joke quietly as he brings his eyes to mine again, and I harden my voice, “life would’ve been really…” this part comes out in almost a snarl “uneventful without you.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” he flashes a smile, affection still shining in his eyes. They start to glisten again, maybe with tears, lightening them from dark brown to a chestnut hue, and my hate for him all melts away again. Again, I’m just a girl who still loves the guy in front of her, traces of their history weakening her will. 

“But I guess it’s time now. Admit your defeat yet?” I’m partly joking now, partly serious. It’s all going to be over. A mixture of bittersweet sadness and a dash of pride swirl in my stomach, the unrest allowing a sickening smile to bubble on my face. I can’t tell if I’m happy or sad anymore, a smile still on my face, wetted by my falling tears now. 

“You’re gonna miss me,” he smiles, this time wistfully, “I’m proud of you for getting here.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I deadpan, rising again and taking the gun between my fingers now. The metal seems colder than before, sturdy and heavy in my grasp. 

“I guess it’s finally time to accept my one and only loss,” flashing a smile one more time before settling into a serious expression, “well that and losing you in the first place. Don’t forget me. Even though you probably won’t.”

I flashback for a second to our first kiss, my heart fluttering. I can almost feel the frigid night, the familiar howling of the wind mixed with sheets of rain filling my ears for a second. In the background, there are distant drunken laughs from the bar wafting through the air, white noise that allows for the moment to isolate and solidify. For a second, as I close my eyes, I can see him cupping my face in his hands and holding me close, warming me from the surrounding weather. In true him-and-I fashion, we kissed in the misty, cold rain, smiling and laughing together as the night darkened further. But the memory of what we were doing that day taints it: I never knew him before I got involved in crime, and I’ll never know him after. I know now that he was trying to recruit me back then, the reason why I’ve been swept up into the whirlwind of my new life. I thought that that silent competition was a fun way of flirting. Really, it was a close case file read mixed with a strategy to pull me in. Maybe in a way, we were never really in love. Maybe we’ve achieved the strongest form of hate there is.

And then the memory is gone, and tears trickle down my cheeks as I slowly raise the gun in front of him, finally ready to put it all behind me, push it all into the past no matter how much it hurts. It’s weird how he’s ruined my life, but at the same time, all the chasing, all the desperate kisses, all the I-love-you’s have made my once-boring life worth living. Not once in the last years have I stopped for a second and allowed the world to catch up with the dizzying speed of my life, the adrenaline of the chasing causing me to fall in love with his shadow, as he slipped out of my grasp way too many times. Then again, I’ll never have kids now, never mend with the family I left behind for this life of secrecy, never have a somewhat normal life, and I can’t decide if that’s okay.

“It’s my time now, don’t feel bad,” he whispers softly, affection coating his breaking voice, “I don’t blame you...I would’ve,” his voice breaks, “done the same thing.”

“Thank you for the last five years of my life. I won’t say I’ll miss you….”

“But we both know you will,” he finishes for me. “I love you,” he smiles sadly.

“I love you too,” I whisper, pulling the trigger. And I mean it. I know that now. After an earth-shattering bang, he’s gone.

And I am alone.