As he began to pull, the crack of a splintered board signaled the end, 

Precipitating him like a wet sack of mud toward the waiting concrete. 

Hitting hard, blackout, grayed consciousness, the crash of metal. 

Surging pain. 

Assaying the wreckage of himself and the machine, he should have seen it coming.

He wanted to feel anger, sadness, but there was nothing left in him, not even for himself. He was a a ghost. 

It had always been the same in his life, reaching achievement, only to have it torn away. This time it had been his own fault, but not other times. 

He had been told he could pursue her for what she’d done, turn her life upside down, smash it, the way the machine now laid, broken and in pieces. But he had nothing left, no anger, no passion to see it done, and her life was already wreckage, wreckage she had chosen. She liked wreckage, being wrecked by controlling pricks, wrecking herself, and wrecking others, him. 

He had loved her more than he knew he could love, but it was not meant to be. She, incapable of epiphany, heart twisted into something that only knew usury, incapable of genuine love, just games, pretense, shallow longings.

He was done with games. 

So he would let the memory of her smile fade from his mind, buried in betrayal, though it would take longer for him to relinquish it than it had for her, likely years, but for her it had been immediate, never having had even a slight care, though she had faked it. 

The machine could be repaired, somehow, but she could not be. She was what she was, and her desires were for things that didn’t matter to him, that didn’t matter to an honest life. Her childhood self would likely not recognize her in a reflection any longer, a ghost of a person, a shell of pretense, denying her inner self her former dreams, simple dreams without pretense. 

It had had the potential to be a great love story, one for generations, triumph over self-inflicted adversity, torn souls mended and fused, screw the world’s opinions, but it had existed only in his mind, not hers … except for the roses, the enigmatic breach of silence, the inexplicable show of feelings, feelings that did not exist, a cold ploy of mockery, bait to lure him into action that would let her wreck him more. 

No, she was lost at sea in her paranoia and trivial wants, never to hear his heart, no matter how loudly it yelled, never to weigh her emotions, never to entertain the possibilities, and influenced against him, as she had always been. He was an afterthought, if that, and would never be more. He hoped whatever materialistic demon that had possessed her would find its peace in the arms of the next user. That’s all she wanted, and he wanted her to have it. But it was still an epic love story, though unrequited and turned to hatred, the kind that dispels the romanticized delusions portrayed on film, the kind she pretended to. 

It looked now like the broken stairs and smashed pieces of plastic and dented metal on the floor. She had taken and ruined his heart. But he had taken her dream of weaving beautiful words and made it his, his small revenge, if it could even be called that. She had sold that dream out too. Sold herself out. 

So he said goodbye, as he had before the troubles, the ones she had created, inflicting wreckage, like the wreckage on the floor before him now. He had not deserved her spite and lies, as she had not deserved his love, nor anyone’s. She could tell herself whatever untruths she wanted to for the rest of her life, but she would know forever what she had done, although it didn’t bother her, with no heart left to be bothered. 

They were both now only ghosts, ghosts created by bitterness, he slain by her, she slain by her own perverse desires, empty wants, past choices, and vindictiveness, destined to fade into the void. He accepted that, but knowing that she would fight the truth, pretend to be a living woman, although she never could be, not now, never accepting that their souls, as much as neither wanted it now, were forever intertwined by the grief they’d inflicted upon each other and only able to be mended, to live again, through each other. 

That’s what the roses had really bespoken, though she would repress her actual motive and excuse it as pity, pity he didn’t want. She could not be true to herself, no matter the urge. That’s who she was. 

And, as fate wept, seeing the undoing of its toil, having sent them to each other, that was the end of the story, a story of existential grief that never had to be told.