Part six

I dipped my feet into the water as I waited. I couldn’t recognise myself, I looked monstrous, with shredded lips and a bleeding mouth. Your reflection appeared behind me and in a daze, almost reached in.

I turned around to face you but something was wrong. You held onto a letter, twin to my own, and pressed it into my hands as you dropped down onto the grass. I tore the letter open and hastily read it.

He had followed you after the ball, and you had fought. You thought you could win, you said that you were stronger than him, but he still caught you off guard, and stabbed you with a poisoned dagger a few inches above your gut.

You didn’t know how long you had left but knew that you wouldn’t survive from this, despite the wound having already been bandaged. The poison, the type of injury, the amount of blood you had lost, there was no way.

In the latter half of the letter, you begged me to kill you, to put you out of your misery. I would have refused, but how could I? You had suffered more than enough.

I lifted my skirt, showing you the dagger I had strapped to my calf. It was either that, or drowning.

‘Stab me in the heart.’ You instructed me.  ‘It’ll be quicker.’

I nodded, and my hands shook as I grasped it.

‘I’m sorry it had to end this way, Jules.’

‘How did you know my name?’ I mouthed.

‘I’ve always known who you were. I shouldn’t have lied. Our families, they hate each other, I was afraid you would hate me too, if you knew of my true identity.’

I smiled at him and wiped a tear away. My abuser was a family friend, and my saviour my enemy, a member of the House of Daffodils.

‘I’ll help you do it.’ You said to me, and grabbed my hands, wrapped them around the dagger’s hilt and held them tightly as you drove it in your chest.

I remembered you, I had heard of you. A boy from the rival house, same age as I am. Your name had come up in many conversations with my mother, as she had warned me to avoid you at all costs.

My voice came back for a mere moment, and I said your name as you died in my arms. I closed your eyes and laid you in the water, but as you sank, I thought of him.

He had taken everything away from me, even you. I couldn’t let him have anything else. I sobbed as I reached for the dagger that laid in the grass, and I made sure to hold my letter. Whoever would find me would also discover the truth, whether they believed me or not, I didn’t care, not truly. It would be too late for me anyway.

I pushed the dagger in my abdomen and yanked it out, and laid near the lake, near you, as my life spilled out of me.

I thought back to that night, to the ball.

I almost wished I hadn’t met you.