【生肉搬运】鸟雀Passerine 第三章(37)

He could still it, in his mind’s eye. He remembered so little of her, but he could never forget how he’d crawled up on the bed next to her, trying to wake her. He could never forget his confusion when she refused to, nor the blinding pain when he realized why.
“And most days, Wilbur, that’s all I think about. How I was awake and could have stopped him, and I could’ve made him stay, and you wouldn’t have needed to be king so young. I could have spared you for all of this, Wilbur. And now, everything’s gone to shit and it’s all my—” A sob tore free from his lips, sudden and unrelenting. “I want to help you. But I don’t know how. Nobody ever taught me how.”

“Tommy…” Wilbur’s voice sounded so far away.
“But the worst thing,” Tommy continued, trying to ignore the ever-tightening noose around his neck, “is that maybe I should have seen it coming. He used to come by your door, in the middle of the night, when you used to live across the hall. I kept my door open, just a crack, after the first time it happened, just to see if he would come again. And he did, so many times. I used to think he would knock eventually, but he never did.” Tommy tightened his hold on himself, shaking with grief, and maybe with relief, too. “I think he was saying goodbye long before he left, Wilbur.”