“I’m sorry.”
How do you tell a woman sorry?
The woman that raised the boy that you held in your arms as he died, crying and apologizing to you?
The boy that was her nephew, her only family left, maybe not by blood, but the last connection to her dead husband that she had left?
How do you tell a woman,
“I held him in my arms as he cried and begged to not let him slip away like someone’s cigarette ashes? Apologizing for letting me down?”
How do you tell her that you tried to save him, tell him to go home and stay on Earth? That his blood is on your hands?
How do you even breathe in the same room as this grieving woman, who lost everyone in her life?
The woman that barely likes you but stands you because you kept her nephew safe, and not deal in an alley? What’s the difference between an alley and a planet light years away?
How do you say,
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t save him” to her face as she stares at you with eyes that have knowledge that she shouldn’t have.
The second she opens the door and she sees you, she just knows that he is dead and you don’t even have to speak. Him not being with you tells her everything.
You had taken her nephew once, bringing them to the Tower that represents so many things but nothing at all. An afterthought.
You feel so much remorse and emptiness, but not the same amount as she does.
You may be wounded fresh, but you just opened up three wounds that she hoped to never open, not until she herself was gone.
“May…” You speak out, but fall on half deaf ears.
The way she looks at you when you finally do tell her breaks your heart and you wish you still had those metal shards in your chest. You wish you had died back in Siberia. You wish that pompous Guardian hadn’t strayed from the plan.
You wish a single spider had never existed to bite a young boy and change his fate. Your fate.
“May, I’m so sorry. He was taken with the rest.” You finally whisper to her.
May tumbles forwards and hugs you with all of her might.
“I tried so hard. I was there.” You tell her as you both cry. “I tried.”
“I know.” She replies back. She knows everything you want to say. Everything that you feel. She understands the unspoken context, words, scenes.
She forgives you because it wasn’t your fault.
“I’m sorry.”