“Despite my vow I went back to see if you were really that special. You were. God help me, I was falling for you but I still didn’t want you to fall for me. That’s why I treated you like shit. Since I couldn’t stay away from you I hoped I could drive you away. And while a little piece of me died every time I mistreated you, I simply can’t imagine how I made you feel. For that I am truly sorry.
“My fucking project was a ploy for you to see there are better people out there than me. I was careful to set you up with girls I knew you would like and who would treat you well. With each new girl I was afraid you would leave me, but you proved to be loyal to a fault and that made me love you even more.
“Thomas, I love you. I think you love me, too, or at least, you once loved me. I’m sorry I never got to hear you say it.”
“I love you, Nico,” I said to the screen. Nico started to say something but stumbled over her words and started swearing. She got stuck on the word fuck, repeating it over and over for more than a minute before there was a break in the video. When the video resumed night had fallen in Nico’s room.
“The seizures are growing more frequent and getting worse. I have headaches and I’m so tired all time. All I want to do is sleep. My short-term memory doesn’t work so well nowadays so I had to go back and watch what I had recorded.
“So, I wanted you and I didn’t want to hurt you, but I did hurt you. That day in the coffee shop you were incredibly brave in trying to tell me how you felt. In my panic I lashed out and I’m afraid I may have permanently damaged our relationship. The next several weeks were especially bad for seizures and tremors. I ignored your calls and texts because I couldn’t think coherently and I didn’t want you to see me like that.
“When I felt better I went to the computing center, saw the pain etched on your face and I knew I had finally succeeded in driving you away. I couldn’t let you go, though, and I had to have you one last time. Maybe a more accurate way to say it would be ‘one first time.’ Despite all my blunt talk about sex I was no more experienced than you, in anything. I learned as I went along, just like you. In the end, you were my first and my last. You were my only.”
Nico’s head began jerking slightly to the side, her eyes unfocused. The jerking continued unabated until the video cut to a sunlit room. Now there was a soft beeping of a monitor in the background. Nico’s left eye was filled with blood and the pupil fixed and dilated.
“There’s so much I want to say but I don’t have time for. I’m afraid if I don’t wrap this up soon I won’t be able to edit it and then you’ll have to watch long stretches of me swearing and twitching.
“I wish I had done so much differently. I should have treated you better. I should have loved you openly and, if you loved me in return, I should have spent every possible moment with you. My intentions were to fully live what remained of my life and I failed in the worst possible way. I denied you. I denied love. I denied life.”