Language in the Blood

by Angela Lockwood

  ***

  I found her that evening, lying in the bath tub. She had cut deep into her arms with a razor and the water was red with her blood. She was already dead and there was nothing I could do. There was no more I wanted to do... I had drained her of life after all.

  I could have brought her back – we could have been together for all eternity – but denying Hélène her treasured light would have been a fate so much worse than death for her. I took the portrait she had painted of me and left.