What exactly brought me here, I cannot say. Perhaps it was my feet, retracing steps I used to walk. Perhaps it was my mind playing tricks. Or perhaps it was just the funny fat pixie Coincidence, bonking me on the head with its sugar-coated marshmallow wand.

Whatever it was, it didn't change the fact that at the moment, I was standing outside the window of the bookshop. YOUR bookshop. The one I hadn't gone into since our date. The one where I met you and the one wherein you still worked.

I'm actually surprised you're still there. I'd had thought that you had quit in fear that I'd come seeking you out. But of course you were different. You were always different.

What would have happened, Devi, if I hadn't turned away to tell the Doughboys everything? If for once, since meeting them, I chose not to follow their advice. If I had chosen not to immortalize the moment? If instead, I chose to let another person's lips touch me, for the first time since my mother still thought me to be cute? Would I have been happy? Would I, instead of looking into a window, moping and thinking, be somewhere, looking up at the sky and thinking how wonderful life is?

And now, looking into the window of the bookstore where you work, I feel as if my little Styrofoam friends were right. Maybe there is nothing better for me --- a confused, ravaged and incomprehensible maniac who roams the roads at three in the morning, searching for fresh blood with which to paint my wall

My eyes begin to blur as I slowly begin to realize I'm thinking in melodramatic and angsty prose. I'm perfectly aware the wet things rolling down my cheeks are tears, but I don't see the need to wipe them away. They're just tears. The salty waste of our eyes. Why should I give a shit?

With one last lingering look at you, selling cheap paperback copies of god-knows-what to the worst of society, I turn away, melting into the shadows that the people cast as they pass by.

For a split second there, I thought I saw myself, reflected in the very corner of your eye…

Did you see me Devi? Did you realize that maybe for the first time since I began killing, several years ago, I was feeling a pang of regret?

For you, nonetheless.

I clutch my knife as I cut into a dark alleyway and see this blonde cheerleader chick who called me a faggot for her friends the other day. Her back is turned to me. She won't see it coming. Carefully, I give a small sigh, tucking these feelings deep into the back most room of my mind. Then, replacing my forlorn expression with a grin, knife outstretched, I lunge.