Fallout

[Luis Caldeira]

• November 1883, following this
  
  He never should have gone to see her again. What had he been hoping for? Everything. Anything. He'd hoped for too much. And that was that.
  
  Nothing she could say could explain the truth away, but he could still hear her voice ringing in his head, on his miserable march all the way home. I feel sick... she'd said. He felt worse. "I don't expect you to be able to look at me ...love me... The cruelty of that statement. He hated her - hated what she'd done, hated how she evidently didn't care about him at all - but he loved her. Of course he bloody loved her. The thought was a frustrated yell in his head, accompanied only by an accidental thump of the wall as he swung a fist sideways into it. Stinging knuckles did nothing to quell the anger at himself. Luís loved her, loved her beyond all her Veela charm, really loved her somehow, and he was like dirt on her shoe. He was easily put out of her mind while she amused or comforted herself, however she'd explain it, with other men and a bloody pregnancy. And he was left with a woman he couldn't expel from his head no matter how hard he tried, and she would have nothing to do with him, and there was nothing for him to do but be a tormented fool.
  
  He found a bottle in the remains of his stash, but was near empty. Gone in one short swig. He tossed the bottle down, listening carelessly to it roll across the floor until it hit the corner of an uneven floorboard and came to a dull wobbled halt. His hands were still trembling; rationally, he knew, it was the alcohol he craved, but it was Marceline, too. Which addiction was the more pathetic?
  
  It didn't matter. Luís didn't have the energy left to offer scathing appraisals of his own shortcomings. He didn't have the energy left to think.
  
  What was he supposed to do now? Without her?
  
  Exist, he supposed. Continue to exist, like he always did.