Sing Me Your Scars (Apex Voices Book 3) (25 page)

“I love you, Johnny,” I say, but he’s already gone.

His voice whispers from the weightless spot beside me. “It
doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Then that, too, disappears.

And all the paper animals, the stupid folded pieces of paper that
mean nothing, nothing, watch from the windowsills.

With heavy steps, I go from room to room, stuffing them by the
handful into a bag. Even through the plastic, I feel the weight of their gaze,
straining to break free.

But I know how to make them stop.

I carry the bag down to the bridge where Johnny and I shared our
first kiss, the best kiss. The river underneath, brownish-green in the fading
light, rushes by; the muddy stink crawls inside my mouth and lingers in the
back of my throat.

As the sun sets, I throw the
paper animals into the water one by one. They bob on the surface, turning end
over end, bright specks of color in the fading light, until the water swallows
them whole. The blue crane, with its secret heart of sorrow, is the last one to
drop out of sight.

I drop the bag, and the not-elephant tumbles out onto the ground.
The air rushes out of my lungs; everything turns to a blur. I cover my eyes to
hold in the tears, but they won’t stay inside. I can’t make them stay.

The not-elephant still holds a trace of Johnny’s smell, his real
scent, not the stink of his illness. I cradle it to my chest, rocking back and
forth while all the hurt he left behind spills out.

There isn’t enough paper in the world to make it go away.

Damien Angelica Walters’ short fiction has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, including
Year’s Best Weird Fiction Volume One, The Best of Electric Velocipede, Strange Horizons, Nightmare, Lightspeed
,
Apex, Streets of Shadows, What Fates Impose
, and
Glitter & Mayhem
.
Paper Tigers
, a novel, will be released in late 2015 from Dark House Press.

Writing as Damien Walters Grintalis, Damien’s short fiction appeared in
Lightspeed
,
Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies
,
Fireside, Daily Science Fiction
, and others, and
Ink,
a novel, was released in December 2012 by Samhain Horror
.

She’s also a freelance editor, and until the magazine’s closing in 2013, she was an Associate Editor of the Hugo Award-winning
Electric Velocipede
. You can find her on Twitter
@DamienAWalters
or online at:
damienangelicawalters.com
.

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