text: To enter heaven, I need to face what I did 55 years back. She asked where I wanted to meet, and I let her pick out of guilt. Elenor chose our old apartment, and we both laugh when we look at the red walls and the wooden base boards. I finally decide to look at her, and I do. She looks exactly like I saw her when I was twenty five, the extra 7 years of age completely useless in stopping her from looking no older than twenty three. Her hair is in a bun with two sets of curls blocking her ears from view. The only thing that unsettles me about her is the gash in her neck, the slim hole just as visible as the day I lost my purpose. A drop of blood runs from the gash, and as she tilts her head, I jump from surprise at how the blood does moves with her, rooted in the exact same spot. She laughs. “Don’t worry” she says with a smile, “it’s just a tattoo. Everyone has one”. I look down through my shirt to see a broken heart in the middle of my chest. We both smile. “Well I’ll be damned”. We lock eyes and our smiles begin to fade as we know we need to get to the point. I try to figure out how to say it, but she reads my mind like she did 55 years back. “It’s okay. Your heart always worked slower than your brain” she taps my forehead with her friendly smile returning. “It didn’t matter...” I begin to break down into a sob and Elenor reaches across the table and hugs me, my mind immediately easing. She taps her tattoo. “How much worse would it have been if you didn’t give me this?”. I think about those kids in the warehouse and the gun pointed to their heads, the man’s malicious grin just barley barring his teeth at me under his thick beard. We lock eyes again, and I see the sad understanding in her eyes just before she breaks her gaze to look out the window at the Honolulu beaches. “You didn’t know.” She says. “There’s no way you could’ve.” I knew she didn’t hate me, but I didn’t know if she forgave me. There’s no reason she should’ve. So why would she? Yet here we are, in the same apartment as the night I cleaned of the kitchen knife, sitting at The same IKEA table she reluctantly agreed to. “Hey” I look up at Elenor as a mischievous grin appears along her face, and I understand where she stands. She knows I understand and grins wider. She loses her grin fast as she begins to understand. “What does it matter what lingers down there?” She says pointing to my chest. “I forgive you! You don’t need to dwell!” “I do.” I respond. “I took away your chances at raising children. I took away your chance of seeing the world. I took you away from your family. If that isn’t a reason to dwell, I don’t know what is!” “You clearly don’t!” She grabs my hands. “We can still have all that! Please, for the love of god, stay here!” I shake my head. “I’m sorry” I feel her soft touch turn into a fluffy sadness, one that I can’t hold onto as the world slips from under me and I fall. As I fall my young hands take back their wrinkles and coarseness. I close my eyes and wait to be greater with flame, but my fall is interrupted with a firm softness, like a storm cloud forgot its cruel visage and caught be on a bed of hail. And as it remembers the visage, I feel it’s lightning go into my chest. I open my eyes to find the storm cloud in a young woman’s hands, her hospital uniform matching the dull atmosphere. She couldn’t have been older than twenty two. “Oh thank god!” She sighs. “I thought you were a goner!” She stumbles out of the room, her brown curls bobbing up and down as she leaves. I look out the window at a cloud weeping, and the weeping causes rain to fall over the hospital. And I begin to weep, the first tear running down the valley of my wrinkled face, and I realizing that night 55 years ago was the first dance with the devil.