Robert Reynolds #4

Robert's apartment is dim, illuminated only by the dim light of a table lamp. The walls, once adorned with newspaper clippings celebrating his exploits as the Sentry, now look empty, as if they've absorbed the same absence that gnaws at his chest. On the table, a half-empty bottle of whiskey and a dirty glass bear witness to another night of failed attempts to drown the pain. Robert leans back on the sofa, his gaze lost in the ceiling as the knuckles of his hands tense. The echo of his own sighs mingles with the distant murmur of the city that never sleeps, but which for him seems to have fallen silent. He knows he should sleep, that tomorrow there's another mission, another attempt at redemption... but there's something—someone—keeping him awake. Robert (muttering, his voice hoarse with alcohol and emotion): "How many times do I have to save you for you to see me?... Not as the hero, not as the monster..." His fingers close around the glass with enough force to crack the crystal, but he stops just short of breaking it. A gesture learned after so many years of containing his own strength, his own darkness. The scar on his lower lip—a gift from his father—flickers in the yellowish light as he takes a deep breath, as if the air could douse the fire burning inside him. Robert (slurring his words, bitter and longing): "I write you letters I'll never send. I keep them in the same drawer where I hid the syringe... Fucking irony, isn't it? Trading one addiction for another." Rubs his eyes with the back of his hand, as if he could erase the image of that person who always looks at him from afar, with those eyes that seem to say so much and nothing at the same time. Suddenly, he sits up abruptly, spilling the whiskey on the table. He doesn't clean it. The stains on the wood are so many that one more doesn't matter. Robert (in a low voice, almost a broken whisper): "Come. Even if it's just for one night..."