You called out. You never expected an answer, thought you'd have been long forgotten. After all you'd done, you had begun to think you deserved all this misery. Everyone you loved ended up getting hurt or destroying themselves in one way or another, it was your fate to hurt people, it was your job. Oh yes, you were supposed to protect them, but a damn fine job you've done of that, eh Jack?

Alone… out of choice not necessity, remember that Jack! You chose to live like this; you chose to live alone far from any friends, your remaining family, from anyone who might be able to touch your heart again. That had let you down in more ways than one, and the fear was it would continue to do so. You feel like half a man now, less than…

Are you going to let it all begin again? Are you going to ignore the chance, the invitation, and the answer to your cries? Is the fear of the vicious circle winding up around you, too much to even contemplate opening up just once more?

"That's not the answer." You tell yourself. Though, you've been perfectly happy to send a retrieval team to the bottom of a bottle for the past three weeks in search of one. What would Teri think of you now?

"Teri's dead!" your voice stabs out into the stale air, it cracks on her name and sounds unrecognizable. When was the last time you heard it? The way people avoid the word, like they avoid saying 'cancer'. Is that what she has become? Your wife… the one true love of your life… synonymous with disease? Was there a cure? Did you always sound this weak? You haven't spoken to anyone but the pizza guy since you paid the apartment rental almost a month ago and that was hardly intelligent conversation! That's why you spend all day listening to your mind chastising everything you do and have done.

How could you do it Jack? How could you leave her?