Cordova
Sile was too angry to feel guilty about punching Ian. She tried frantically to keep up with Benjiman's powerful stride, and it brought her to a jog. "Benjiman!" She tried to get him to look at her. "Please!" He ignored her. "Just listen to me! Please!" She cried out. He stopped suddenly and turned to her.
"You lied to me, Sile." He said. There was a pain in his voice she couldn't escape. "You know how I felt. Where I stand. And you made your way next to me anyway."
She felt her face burn with shame and sadness. Tears slipped from her eyes. "No! It isn't like that!" She pleaded.
"Then what is it like, Sile?!" Benjiman exclaimed. He, too, shed but a single tear. She reached out for his hand but he moved it away quickly, startling her with a sharp, jagged hurt of total rejection.
"I'll explain, if you'll let me." Her voice shook beneith the deafening roar of consiquences and the pressure of truth and its detrament. She took his silence as an opprotunity to do so. She searched for the right words. "I was part of that... conflict. Since I was eleven. It started with paper running. When I was just a little girl. It took taking a bullet at fourteen to make me realize that they'll shoot indiscriminently." She saw him cringe at the thought. "I still have the bullet. " Sile touched her side and there was a flash of sympathy and caring in his face. "I've.... killed. In situations where it was kill or be killed. But as for doing it with a smile on my face... no. Just the relief of living to see another day. I watched my first die when I was fifteen. And his face still haunts me. They all do. And that's my hell. That I'll never escape their faces. Everytime I close my eyes, there they are... staring back at me." She fought back the tears as hard as she could, and still failed. "How many families have I deprived of a son or a father or a brother.... each of them was someone's friend. And I destroyed that." She angerly flicked the wetness from her eyes. "But at the time I rationalized it with... I've had to bury friends too." She looked at Benjiman, but was forced to turn away from the look of sheer horror and disgust in his eyes. "But I'm through with that. I've had enough of death and violence. I've hated for too long. And I don't want it anymore. I left for America and stayed for ten months, with Ian. And I learned so much about myself, that I could never go back to that. I've begun praying to God that maybe someday he might begin to forgive me or have mercy on me. I think he did... have mercy at least. He sent you. And then you... you opened my eyes to the most amazing things, Benjiman." She pleaded for understanding.
He looked at her, unsure of what he now saw. "What do you want from me, Sile?" She attempted to reach for his hand again and was met with some semblance of success.
She looked up into his eyes. "Just your friendship." She answered truthfully. "I don't know how you did it... but you've woken something up in me that's been dormant the entire time." His expression seemed to ease. "I want to see the world through your eyes. Free of hate and constant fear. Just... free." She wept silently for a second. "I know I'll never wash the blood from my hands. But that's something I have to live with. And I know that hell is waiting for a soul like mine. But, before I get there, help me to see the heaven on earth you've seen?" She recieved no answer and her heart began to splinter apart. "Please don't hate me, Benjiman."
He looked at her again with the soft, gentle nature his eyes conveyed so perfectly. "I don't hate you." He whispered. "You... somewhere came to believe that this was the right way to go about things. But you're ready to live your life without hate." He nodded at that thought.
"That's why I never brought it up!" She insisted. "Because I was trying to put it behind me." He nodded again. Sile sighed. "It doesn't mean I'm safe." Benjiman frowned but understood. "But, come what may. I've put down arms. For good." She gazed skyward. "For Ireland. For John. For Ian... For myself.... For... you."
Benjiman lit up. "Then leave with me!" He exclaimed. "We'll get the hell out of here, and see the world. You and me." He drew her into his arms. "Let me take you out of this." Sile smiled gratefully, and yet couldn't answer. She leaned forth and kissed the man who'd stolen her heart. It was all the answer he seemed to need.