Page 102 of Tempest at Annabel's Lighthouse

AND THAT IS THE WAY OF IT,I believe. All that we dreamed shall remain only that, a dream.

I feel my body settle to the rocky bottom, the sand sifting through my toes and fingers. The lake is binding itself to me, a flood of ice in my nostrils, my throat, my lungs.

Maybe one day I will be remembered. Maybe one day I will make you remember me.

My love.

Because in my death I have discovered that consuming love is nothing more than obsessive love for one’s own contentedness. This is the reason you submitted me to the lake, pushed my body into its choking embrace, held me under and refused to allow me to breathe deep of the hope of life.

No.

You wished no man to have me but you.

Your love that once encircled me now imprisons me, and you will make me conform to the visions of what you hoped we would be. With my death, our love will be frozen in place. My love will be dead, and you will take with you only what you want. A mutilated version of who we once were.

Nay!

Oh, my love!

I had dreamed of loving you with my whole being. But I was wrong. My love was in error, and my heart misled me away from him and away from my child. My selfishness cost me her happiness, and it will cost her peace and hope.

So as my shoulders collide with the rocky earth, as my body becomes one with the waters, so too do I come to realize my own regrets.

I have loved with a love that was less than love. I have loved with a love filled with myself.

As have you, dear one.

As have you, the taker of my breath.

Edgar.