There were things taught to me in my early high school years, that if they became true, it was uncertain how much longer the United States as an empire would continue to exist.

Already in my life at that point, I had seen the withdrawal of troops from the middle East. Donald Trump was trying to start an economic war with Mexico, and nobody really quite knew what he would do next. I hoped the he would not try to keep me and my Anna from moving back to Alsace, France.

There were limits to what European countries found acceptable, many countries were beginning to reject new people into their countries: already there were several groups of wandering tribes deported from Romania to France, which caused a large stink, because it violated EU protocols. Large economic institutions had a seemingly infinite propensity to roll back people’s freedom, making it increasingly a grim alternative to move to Europe.

The Anna-Marie I knew now, her name was Ehena-Maerie. She had lived in the United States long enough here, her parents first generation French immigrants, that it might be a hard sell to go back to her old home country in the Alsace region. For people like her, there was only one way go. Her head into a wicker basket. British isolationism overseas further triggered more animosity in the EU block, making other countries that had also have issues, want to leave.

Me and Ehena-Maerie lived in the after-math of this great imperialist war, the third in the series, trying our best to make it through another day.

But one day, there was simply no alternative. And now I live with the guilt.

A few months during my Sophomore year, I offered a ride for her, because she wasn’t sure when her father was going to come to school.

We had had dinner time when we were at school club, on video game night. We both split a Lasagna together, noting the awful irony of a French girl eating Lasagna rather than some Crepes. She had shoulder length black hair, with a bit of blond, reflective of her mixed heritage. But she still insisted on covering up the color of black, to make it easier to blend into American society..

In the parking lot, we waited for my mom to arrive. I told her about the situation in which we faced.

”I’ll give you a ride this time, but after that I never want to see you with my son again.” My mother was the worst about "misgendering", a phenomenon where people deliberately refer to you as the opposite gender than what you identify as. She didn’t think anything of the fact that she was trying to tell me what relationship to have with people that I went to school with.

But now, looking back on it, I look at my mother’s death as somewhat of a relief, even if Ehena was not here to see it. Yet part of me wants to be with my Ehena again in the crypt.

We played various games together, from JRPGS to Survival Horror games. We also learned how to ride a black horse together, that color being her favorite. Yet now the feelings in my heart move toward less a redness for Ehena-Maerie, and a great void for my mother that tried to separate us. Since then, blond women reminded me of women who were possessive. But Ehena-Maerie had been the exception all these years, and I failed to consider it.

For if I buried myself with my Ehena, nothing separating us. Not the mother of an executioner's daughter, or the blade of the national razor. Ehena showed me a childhood lake that she liked swimming in when she was a kid. We both used the night time to savor the feeling of darkness we both felt for our parents, even if we had not completely known each other yet.

There was a certain level of trust we had that simply was not there among our family members. One of the few months we got to see each other after school, and some nights I would worry about her, do to the bit of information I knew about her father. Because we both saw in each other, something more. Something we didn’t want to admit. Because we both new, despite our different backgrounds, that nothing would separate us by our own volition.

Even if that meant dating a common criminal, and my father… Oh my father. Who was a headsman and a half.

I grew up with this one fantasy game like a lot of kids that grew up between 2004-2007. I had more complicated feelings about those characters, possibly more than any other work of science fiction and fantasy I’ve played or read.

I used to really hate this one character in this one game, because she reminded me of my next door neighbor, whom … was probably one of my first exposures to someone with Narcissistic personality disorder. So I was a bit harsher than what some may view as natural.

But from my perspective, I had known one British and one Spanish girl that reminded me heavily of THIS one character.

I had grown extremely cynical about girls in general: in particular I distrusted the idea of someone that used to hate you, suddenly having a crush on you later. I always wondered if women like this were secretly carrying a stiletto to stab me in the back. From an early age I developed heavy issues of distrust of other women, and being trans did not help matters.

I saw in this one character I did like, something more. Some better part of myself, that I didn’t want to admit. And he was able to tolerate the character I hated, despite loving the girl I loved in the game.

For me, when I met Ehena-Maerie, my feelings for her were an odd mixture of the girl I liked and the girl I didn’t. I was never quite sure which it was. It only took a moment to fade to black, when I was hit by an oncoming bus.

Strapped into a broken motorcycle, cycling their the air like an airplane.

I expected it to hurt for more than how it manifested.