Promises and Pomegranates by Sav R. Miller

breed her, and do you know why, Carmen? Do you get why I chose her?”
Carmen’s tongue swipes quickly across her lips, beads of sweat popping
up where the gun is flush with her skin.
“It’s because she’s as fucked up as me.”
“You can’t talk about my daughter this way—”
The sound of a dull pop cracks against the air like a whip, and Carmen
shrieks loudly, jolting in her seat. Even long after the realization sets in that a
blank was fired, she still screams, the ear-piercing sounds quickly becoming
an irritant to my already frayed nerves.
Her hands come down, clamping around the arms of her chair, and she
presses her back as far from me as she can manage.
Which, all things considered, isn’t far. But I appreciate the effort.
Makes it feel a little less like a conquest.
“I’ll talk about my wife any way I please. Because you know what was
really vile here tonight, Carmen?” I wait, though she still doesn’t answer.
“What you did was vile, and if I didn’t care so much about your fucking
daughter, you’d be drifting to the bottom of the Charles right now for fucking
everything up so spectacularly.”
“I’m sorry,” she sobs, crumbling under the slightest bit of pressure, just
like she used to. It’s a wonder Elena has any backbone at all. “It wasn’t...”
She blows out a breath, trying to collect herself. “I was in love with you, Kal.
I just didn’t know how to... navigate it. You scared me.”
Her words float to the recesses of my brain, the secret places dormant in
the years since our relationship. Part of me expects them to ignite the old
feelings, the young and immature sense of accomplishment I used to feel
when showered with her affection.
Now, all I feel is empty.
And as I let that feeling take root in my heart, spreading outward, I realize
something else.
She may have loved me, but I never loved her.
Losing her never felt like being dismembered, or having the blood
drained right from your body, creating a loneliness unlike anything I’ve ever
known.
It never felt like spending your life as a sinner and finally getting a taste
of Heaven, only to have it ripped right out from beneath your fingertips.
But it takes a woman like Elena to elicit feelings like that. It requires
kindness, and warmth, not the kind of fires lit just for the hell of it, but the