Two years later, and I realize that it isn’t love.

I had tampered and manipulated, using what was supposed to be a gift to enhance mankind for my own selfish, worldly pleasures. I hadn’t meant to control him, ignorantly riding on the waves of my own ego. But how dare he pass me on the street, pretending not to notice me? How dare he not see?

I'd sought his mind. I’d made him look. I’d made him stop. I’d made him fall. Because, of course, who would appreciate the coarse hairs on his chin and cheek, the bit of silver hidden in the blue of his irises, the scar on his right knuckle?

Someone else.

Had I ever used my powers for good?

Once.

Maybe.

I didn’t stop that man from jumping. Didn’t stop that woman from hurting. Didn’t stop that father…

I’d been too busy commanding chocolate, flowers, picnics in the park. Wrapping his arms around me on winter days, bleak from the edge of frost.

And now, two years later, as I look into eyes so dead, I realize that I should have let him be.

I lay next to a vestige. A vessel I created, namely for my own intrinsic reward, with nothing in my heart but the guilt over what my arrogance hadn’t saved.