What Hurts the Most

Alessandra had never known wealth, and had never cared to. Living sustainably, she and her partner Luca had little reason to seek out any more than they had already been given. There is no physical entity which could replace the wholeness of living harmoniously with the earth, and loving unrequitedly with the one who’s survival yours intertwines with. Alessandra craved nothing more than this simplicity, Luca much the same.

The population fluctuated frequently around them, travelers and settlers alike roaming to find a new perfect location. With each stir came opportunity; bypassers of Alessandra and Luca’s land were willing (and occasionally begging) to make trades and even cash exchanges for their goods. Having no desire or need for anything presented to trade, Alessandra and Luca denied the travelers, instead offering them a meal if they were hungry, and rest if they were weak. At times, it would become overwhelming; they had only enough to provide for themselves, yet this demand was not only on their resources, but their morality. Do they continue helping those in need at their own expense, or do they selfishly turn them away?

Alessandra began searching for clarity in the valley of her homeland. She would feel the softness of the earth beneath her feet, see the trees towering above her, smell the flowers that had bloomed, and taste the river's water in the humid air as she heard it rushing near her with such great power and peace alike. While she was gone, Luca was on his own to handle this moral dilemma the travelers faced them with. Though accepting money was largely unreasonable and unneeded in their way of life, Luca saw this option as a way to both help someone in need, and to then justify the loss that it resulted in. Luca began accepting coins. When Alessandra would return from her hiking at sundown, Luca would assure her that the passersby were becoming more infrequent, and that he turned all away in the direction of either merchants or safe land. He did not expect her to understand his true decision, so it became his secret to keep. When Alessandra was gone, walking among the river and the woods as had become routine to her, Luca began selling goods to both the nomads and the locals of the area, gaining a reputation which only brought him more demands for services. Luca, in solitary, met these demands and stashed the money that came from their fulfillment. Luca was playing a charade as he ran his business, and he was playing a charade as he smiled through his teeth and lied to Alessandra. Luca had lost himself in this entanglement and became unable to break free. Money became a high to him, each dollar more satisfying and more closely protected than the last. Through the transactions he was learning that money is power, something he never had experienced in his humble life. It was intoxicating.

Day by day feelings of guilt began to haunt Luca, and he withdrew from his lover to a point of no longer even making eye contact. Who was he? He was sure that he could not be the same man that he used to be. It felt impossible- he had awoken a part of himself that left little room for any passion, conversation, or love. Intimacy was replaced with coldness and accusations, projections of uncertainty aimed at Alessandra. Luca felt painfully disingenuous, manic, and fearful for what he thought of as inevitable discovery by his partner. Alessandra, in the dark on what had been happening while she’d been away from the home, took his short fuse as an indication of displeasure with her. She began to mope, feeling hopeless as if maintaining his happiness was her only role and she had been stripped of it. Luca took the easy opportunity to deflect his guilt and anxieties onto his partner, questioning her every motive and dissecting her every move. The couple was strained, and even Alessandra’s walks were a point of contention; it was when she was away that Luca would live his second life, so he felt entitled to believe then that his partner had the same mindset.

Alessandra did not have the same mindset. She was in agony at the emotional loss of her soulmate. She soothed her spirit following the river, listening to it chatter and sometimes chattering back. A smaller creek diverged itself from the river, tucked away between trees and rolling hills. Alessandra, already barefoot, lifted her skirt and stepped into the shallow water which caressed just above her knee. She wades forward towards a tree fallen over the water, her skirt now soaked from stumbling with each step on the rocky, awkward creek floor. She pulls herself onto the bushy tree, surprised to see that something still so full of life could have ended up falling down. She ran her hand across the branches from where she sat, noticing how green the leaves were… all but one. Alessandra reached out to grab the imperfection, shocked when she pulled her hand back to reveal a small, black, leather bound notebook.

Luca could not take it anymore- he had followed his lover on her walk today, unknown to her of course, and was watching her from behind the trees, waiting to catch her in a moment of scandal that may diminish his own before it is realized. He steps forward slightly.

Alessandra squeezed the mysterious little notebook in her fingers, noticing it was amazingly free of any water damage.

Luca approached more closely, still hidden from her eyeshot.

Alessandra opened the journal and flipped through pages and pages of hastily written entries smeared with black ink, none legible. When she did finally find a page that was clear, the words seemed nearly to have called off of the paper to her, “money will kill you”, as if those words were written minutes before she discovered the book whereas the rest of it is from years before. Baffled by what she just read, she set the notebook back among the branches and pushed herself off the tree, into the water where she landed on her hands and knees on the rocky bottom. As she pushed her torso up from the creek, she grabbed at one of the smaller rocks, bringing it up with her.

Luca could see what was in her hands from where he had been standing watching her-it was gold. Gold that meant nothing to her, yet had developed such quick and such great value for Luca. He watched her now in disdain, sure that she had hidden this gold mine of a creek from him. He watched her pick up the gold over and over again, convincing himself more with each passing second that he has given his life to a greedy liar. She was surrounded in enough gold to be equivalent with tens of thousands of dollars, he told himself there was no way she had incidentally discovered it.

Alessandra inspected the mineral in her hands, picking up and then returning each unusually large nug back into the water. She had no desire for wealth, and she began to wonder about the peculiarity of the note she had found. A quick glance at the fallen tree was not enough to find the ominous journal again that she had set down. Alessandra had been gone some time now and the jarring discovery of this creek and notebook left her feeling a hollowness she wanted only to fill again in comfort at her home. While nature brought her peace, it seemed to her now that something was wrong, and that she was even being followed by someone perhaps.

Luca was in the creek at this point, watching Alessandra with confidence that he would not be heard. It was very easy for him to reach down and choose a formidable chunk of gold, nearly the size of his head. He felt powerful standing there surrounded by untapped riches, he could not believe what his partner had tried to keep from him! Money is now all Luca will understand.

There was a rustling behind Alessandra, she turned around quickly and was immediately looking into the face of her lover, him who she cared for so deepl-

Luca brought the rock down to his ex lovers head, the light in her eyes unmatched to any other until the second they shut for good. For a moment, Luca felt gut wrenching despair. He heard her breath release from the water into the clouds, he squeezed her hand desperately and grabbed at the wet clothing on her body. He then pulled himself from her beautiful lifeless body, briefly stopping a hand over her forehead to say goodbye to her beautiful mind. Luca needed not to mourn, he was more than fulfilled as he piled nug after nug of gold into his bag until he could almost no longer move. This will keep him warm at night, this will listen to his triumphs and hardships, this will touch him, and this will love him as much as Alessandra now can.