The Colour Green

The next dream came quiet.

No shadows, no blood, no endless stairs. Just the soft ambient glow of a lamp, and the faint scent of a perfume he hadn’t smelled in years. Lucius stood in a room he knew all too well, though it never even belonged to him.

Her room.

She sat on the bed, the same bed where they had wasted hours talking about nothing and everything. She didn’t speak at first. Neither did he.

Lucius’s throat ached. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Neither are you,” she said softly.

The silence between them pressed down, heavy with the weight of everything unsaid.

She looked at him, eyes trembling. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left like that.”

Lucius laughed under his breath, but it was bitter. “Sorry doesn’t change anything. You threw me away. ‘If you burned the house down I would’ve blamed the match.’ That’s what you used to say, right?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t throw you away. I... I couldn’t keep up. You gave everything, Lucius. Too much. I never knew how to hold it all.”

“You could’ve tried,” he shot back. “I carried us, I gave until I had nothing left. And you…” His voice trembled. “You just stood there.”

“I was drowning too,” she whispered. “You think I didn’t hate myself every time you looked at me like I was the air you couldn’t breathe without? I could never be what you wanted me to be.”

He turned away before he broke completely, moving through the room instead. It was all still there, like a mausoleum of their history.

A vinyl record hung up on the wall, the one he bought for her birthday all those years ago. He picked it up, turning the cover over in his hands, feeling transported right back to the moment he handed it to.

She looked away. “Lucius-”

“No. Listen.” His words spilled out, painfully sharpened by the years he’d swallowed them. “That last phone call... where you told me I needed to stop relying on you.” He laughed bitterly. “All you ever did was rely on me.”

Her lips parted, but no defense came.

“Every problem with your family, your friends, your life, it always circled back to me. I was the first one you called.” His voice cracked, raw now. “And when I needed you most... you discarded me. Treated me like I was nothing.”

Silence stretched between them, thick, unbreathable.

She whispered, her irises lit green like the evening sun. “You were burning alive, and I didn’t know how to hold the flames. You were so overwhelming, drowning me, burning me, pushing me down. I was scared.”

“So was I.” His voice cracked.

On the desk, her favourite book, the first few pages filled with his messy handwriting, letters he scribbled for her late one night. He touched the ink with his fingertips. “I don’t even remember what I wrote. Something stupid about all the animals we’d have, the house we’d build one day.”

“I didn’t think it was stupid.”

Drawings taped crookedly to the wall, his clumsy sketches. An acrylic painting of a difficult memory, the last gift he had ever given her. “I thought we could build something lasting, didn’t you?”

“You always expected me to be more,” she said quietly.

“And you never expected enough,” Lucius replied. “That’s the truth, isn’t it? I gave too much. You gave too little. After all the time that’s past, I don’t know who to blame anymore. I’m just tired.”

She bit her lip, eyes glassy. “Maybe we were both selfish. Maybe we loved each other wrong.”

Lucius let out a long breath. “Yeah. Maybe we did.”

Bracelets, fraying at the ends. Fuzzy dice hanging by the window. A fluffy skeleton in a bear costume.

“You know, I threw all your gifts away, all the cards, everything. I burned them all so there wouldn’t be anything left. Even that album you bought me for christmas, I ripped it to shreds. Couldn’t stand to look at it anymore.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed, stuffed bear in his hands. “Why do you get to be happy now? Why do you get to live your life when everyday I struggle to even breathe? Is this just…what I deserve?”

Lucius’s jaw tightened. For so long, the hatred had been easier than the hurt. He could hold onto that, use it as fuel. But here, surrounded by all the remnants, he saw it clearly. She hadn’t destroyed him. He had destroyed himself clinging to what couldn’t be saved.

He set the bear back down. His eyes closed. “I can’t…I refuse to go on like this anymore. My whole life has been consumed by the black hole left behind in your absence. All the scenarios I would make up in my head to fall asleep at night, all the made up conversations to just soothe some of the pain. I’m done, I’m done with it all.”

Her breath caught.

“I made so many mistakes, caused both of us so much difficulty. All because I was holding on too hard. I know I suffocated you, in the end I really didn’t leave you much of a choice. You only did what was best for you, I can’t hate you for that. My life has been covered by the dark cloud of what we once were. Everything was only a reminder…of what I would never have again. After all this time since you’ve been gone, I don’t know if I’ve been any better off. It doesn’t really feel like it. But I see it now, what you’ve shown me through all of this.”

A faint wind breezed through the windowless room, tossing her hair into dangling curls.

“I just wanted to talk to you one last time, to tell you I’m sorry for letting you down, for not being the person you needed me to be,” he whispered. “I hope you can forgive me.”

The words left him like a weight torn from his chest, as he let the essence of her go.

The room began to dissolve. The lamp, the bed, her face, all unraveling into dust, dissipating like smoke..

In their places, a door formed, unlike any before. Tall, glowing faintly, its frame shifted like an optical illusion.

Lucius stepped toward it. Behind him, the memories of the past melted away, all dropped from his shoulders as he pushed the door open.

Light poured through, and when he stepped across, he was no longer in her room.

The wheat stretched forever, golden and whispering, bending beneath the wind. The horizon burned with endless dusk.

And waiting there, among the stalks, he saw himself.