We came in for drinks and a few hands of poker. Our favorite spot in town. But it's never about that.

"If I ever find the man who did it to her,"
he pauses, lowers his voice,
"I'll kill him."

I'm surprised, a little.
"Would you really commit murder?"

"Yes," he says softly, sympathetically, in earnest.

People change, I think. But Lives are worthless in the grand scheme of things.
So I nod.

"Hey," I say,
"I wonder what happened to [Eurasia]. You know?"
I ask every time.

J chuckles.

I continue. "We should find him. He's either in a ditch or... still working for his mom."

"He doesn't want to see you," J says.

I'm always little shocked when I hear it. I'd kissed the boy off the last time I'd seen him. Quite literally did nothing but care for him.
He was a tattered beast when I met him,
he was the smoke in my lungs when I knew him.
But he wasn't right in the head, and I knew it.
You'd think something like that would bear a little more weight:
someone you loved doesn't want to ever see you again.
But today,
 I just don't feel it.


"And [rogue]?" he asked.
I shook my head. "Couldn't do it." Make up some excuse for why.
What a shame. Kid was beautiful.
Had to waste a hand.

"Seeing anyone new then?"
I blushed a little. People as projects. I've got J's approval on this one.


As we left, American Spirits blazing our trail, I thought again about
what it meant to end someone's life for the sake of another.
And just for a moment back there,
I wanted to see him do it.