FicWad

I called Gwen a cab, telling her I'd call her after I was done with Ethan and Echo.
She said she understood, giving me a soft kiss.
I assumed we were dating now, but I never asked, and she never told me.

I chain smoked three cigarettes, hating it when Ethan got like this. This was just one of his moods, he felt like destroying something beautiful, he'd opt for himself. He never followed through with it though, and he probably wouldn't this time either.

I pulled up to his house, Echo was waiting for me.

"No police this time?" I asked, closing my car door.

"Don't be stupid. I can't even talk him out of this one. He'll only talk to you." she said dryly, grabbing my hand and leading me into the house.

"Is he here?" I heard Ethan call from the back of the house where his bedroom was.

"Yeah, he's heading back!" Echo shouted back, giving me a half-hearted push.

"You're not coming?"

She shook her head, "No, he won't see me. He only wants to talk to you."

She shrugged and sat down to a cup of coffee.

I shrugged myself, and headed back to his room. The house was small, cramped, but functional and well furnished. The perks of being an editor I suppose.

I passed a wall dedicated to literature, books upon books of sonnets, plays, satires, essays, and haiku. I smirked, he had to get his inspiration somewhere.

I knocked on his door, "Ethan?"

"Come in Tyler, we need to talk."

I entered the room, taking a seat at his desk, "What's this about Ethan?"

He was sitting on his bed, crosslegged in a bathrobe.
He smiled, his nose bandaged up, his eye swollen purple and black, "It's funny how we all write stories, fiction. It's funny how our lives are a work of fiction, something that is supposed to be non-fiction."

I was already getting annoyed with his rambling, "Why am I here Ethan? I told you I'm through with this, all of this. Later tonight, I'm going to burn my work and move on. You should too, instead of 'Killing' yourself as Echo claims."

He nodded curtly, "Indeed, a bold move to destroy that which one has created. Y'know, I never thought of your work as being bad-."

"So you stole it from me." I said, cutting him off coldly.

He smiled wryly, "Yes, me and Hunter stole from you, and it was wrong. But I did not bring you here to apologize for that, or even the funeral fight."

I shrugged impatiently, "Than why am I here?!"

He cleared his throat, "Lola Chloe."

"What about her?"

He continued, "She is not a writer you need to ge involved with. Her work is not suitable for publication, let alone for prying eyes."

I waved him off with a hand, "Whatever Ethan."

He pounded the mattress with a tightly clenched, shaking fist, "Listen to me Tyler!"

His sudden agression caught me off guard.

"She is dangerous! Her writing is dangerous! I've read it, Hunter read it, Echo read it, even you and I'm sure your girlfriend have read it!"

"So? What's the big deal about her?" I replied.

He sighed angrily, "The big deal, is that her work is dangerous. Hunter happened upon it first. She had sent it to him through the mail, a single, simple poem of hers. He read it, fell in love with it, and demanded more. She sent him more, and he had me proof read it before it went to the editors table."

I leaned back in my seat, knowing this was going to be awhile.

"When I first read it, I felt hope. Hope that she could very well be the new thing. A fresh breath of air in the stagnant space that has become todays literary world. You've seen it, I've seen it, and Hunter saw it. Very soon, he was asking for more. You've read it, how powerful and deep, and moving her work is right?"

I nodded.

"You've only read a little of her work, me and Hunter have read a novel's worth of her writing! We wanted to have her work published, but the publishers said it was too dark, too disturbing, too controversial! They said that the world needed poems and stories of glory, of life, and not of pessimistic point of views! HA! They laughed at us! What poetry or story isn't supposed to move you?!"

He was right, if it didn't stick, it wasn't worth shit.

He continued, clearing his throat, "We had all this material for her, to make her book. But we couldn't get it through. We had to tell her that we couldn't get it published because if we did, we'd be blacklisted for life! That scared me and Hunter into abandoning our pursuit, so we simply wrote off Lola Chloe as a failure and went on with our lives."

Damn, I wanted a cigarette.

Echo came into the room, handing me and Ethan a cup of coffee.
I thanked her as she left the room again.

After he took a sip he continued, "So we thought that was that. We figured we had missed out on something big, but there were always other fish in the sea. But couple months later, we found out she had some of her work published! That book you read from at the funeral, the only book on record that has her work available to the human naked eye!"

I took a sip of coffee, "What does this have to do with me?"

He nodded, "You now, have all of her orignal work, if not copies of the orignals. You must not seek her out, just leave this matter alone."

"Why?"

"Because!" Ethan shouted, pounding the mattress with his fist again, "She is who ultimately killed Hunter!"

I was shocked. I wasn't sure if I he was speaking figuratively or by actual murder.

He calmed down to continue, "She was bitter, very very bitter for not getting her work published by us. The publisher who had gotten her work put out there, he was a snake of a man. He would ask for 'Favors' for those who wanted to have their names in print on front covers. From what I understand, he used and abused her something horrid, but it got her put out there, for one book, two pages, towards the end."

I ran my fingers through my hair, feeling sympathy for her, this poet that I had the upmost respect for.

"She wrote Hunter a poem, a poem about him, for him. She titled it, 'The ever clever dinner guest'."

I gasped, Ethan nodded at my reacion, "Yes, you've read it too. I thought it was about the President or some other diplomat. No, it was a satire of Hunter, a cruel caricature of who he was, who he really was. It was as if she had researched him, and wrote a pieced dedicated to his ruin!"

"But why would that drive Hunter to do what he did?!"

"Hunter was already depressed about the matter. Hell, everyone in the writing community knew about the disgrace Lola Chloe went through to get published. Hunter felt responsible, even though it wasn't his fault. But, the other reason is because he didn't just steal work from you Tyler."

I pursed my lips in mute anger.

"He stole quite a few works from her, claiming them as his own, saying he wrote them! When they were published a year later, he got so much praise for them, he was considered a literary master. It was only because Hunter had good connections with publishers, did Lola Chloe's work get published under his name."

I slouched over in my seat, dumbfounded by all of this. The coffee was sweetened, but it still tasted bitter.

"And my crime? Ha! Lola Chloe had asked me to return her orignal writing to her. I burned it instead. I figured she was washed up writer, who wouldn't even be remembered years to come. And I was right, no one knows of her work. No publicist, no library, archive, bookstore, literary magazine. No one, except me, Hunter, Echo, and now You."

His voice was shaky, tired sounding.

"So now what? You're going to kill yourself too?" I said, a half-hearted joke.

"Actually, yes."

I looked up to face him, just in time to see him run his fathers razor blade across his throat....