How To Save A Life

"Soul, can you please come inside of the kitchen?" Maka asked nicely. She didn't want to do what she was about to do but she could no longer pretend like it wasn't a big deal. She had stood beside her boyfriend through thick and thin and she really loved him but she couldn't be with him anymore.

"What is it you want?" His voice was slurred from the alcohol he had been drinking the same morning.

"Please. Come inside of the kitchen."

Soul growled and muttered a "fine." He got up from his couch and wobbly made his way toward the kitchen. After his dear brother Wes had died he had become a wreck. The alcohol had been his only cure from the pain and because of that he lost all of his friends one by one while his girlfriend Maka had stayed beside him. She had helped him through thick and thin, helping him eat and even giving him aspirins and water in the morning. But all her actions were for death ear, she pleaded him to stop with the alcohol but Soul had only hit her because of foolishness. Maka's body is covered in bruises on her arms, shoulders and even legs. He had only hit her and slapped her but in her mind it wasn't enough to scare her away. She knew he wouldn't do anything worse to her but then again, she never thought he would ever hit her.

"What is it?" she asked harshly while he took his seat in the chair in front of her.

Maka's hands shook violently while she tried to be strong. But she loved this man. She loved him even when he is like this but she can't do this anymore. "Soul, I'm asking you one final time, please stop the drinking. I'm begging you."

Soul raised his eyebrow in puzzlement. She had asked him plenty of times before to stop drinking but he hadn't. The bottle of alcohol wasn't going anywhere soon. "And I say no. You already know I won't get rid of it you stupid bitch," he snorted at her, "You are so stupid you think I will ever get rid of the alcohol!? I love alcohol and the alcohol loves me you dumb twit!"

It was like a stab in the heart. He had said it plenty of times to her before but it had never hurt this bad. All the pain Soul had ever delivered to her came toward the surface. She had been his little slave for too long but she didn't want to lose him. She loves him and she wants to be with him but if this is all it will ever be, it is better to walk away. But if she does, she is sure Soul will lose everything. She is the only string of light left but she is starting to fear for her own safety and she don't want to be afraid of Soul anymore.

"Why are you like this? Wes died over a year ago! He is dead Soul and the pain won't go away just because you drink!" Maka screamed at her beloved boyfriend and tears started to drip from her cheeks. Her emotions are going haywire and she can't stop it. "The pain will always be there even if you drink! It won't solve anything!"

"Shut up! You bitch! You don't know anything!" He hollered at her and immediately, she lost all strength and the will to fight him back. She felt so little in his presence and his red eyes and never looked so deadly. "The alcohol solves everything! It helps me to calm down and get my feelings in check!" He tightened his hold on the bottle of vodka in his hand and quickly he took a big gulp of it before he continued. "I don't even know why I keep you around?! You are just a pain in the ass like everybody else is!"

He knew very well why he had her around. He loves her but with all the alcohol clouding his mind and heart he didn't even know what was up and down. His feelings for Maka were all clouded with the alcohol and the alcohol turned her into a stranger who just happened to be his girlfriend.

"How can you say that…? I'm your girlfriend. Don't all those nights I had spent taking care of you mean anything? I have cleaned up all of your puke and taken care of you like you were a baby." She didn't dare to yell at him. She was too afraid Soul might hit her. "I pray for you every night that someday you will wake up and forget all about the alcohol and your pain for Wes will be gone."

He snorted and looked out of the window to his left. It was all bright of the new fallen white snow. Yesterday it had rained and now with the new fallen snow people would have to be extra careful of the ice.

"I know best and I admit I'm not the same as I was but this is me! This is the new me and I love it! It is all thanks to my absolute vodka bottle here!" He patted the see-through bottle with the colorless liquid inside.

Before Wes's death, Soul had been the perfect boyfriend and a good friend to everybody. The day he met Maka had been the best. It was in high school in his senior year when he met Maka. He fled from his ex whom begging him to take her back but he wasn't interested in having a cheating girlfriend. Heck, he wasn't even interested in having a long termed relationship.

That is when he met Maka. He fled inside of the library he thought he could find some book or anything to write his report in Stein's class. He looked through all kinds of animal books but he didn't find one to his liking. Books were never his thing to begin with but he needed to get a higher grade or else he would fail his class.

He had taken Maka for a librarian since she walked around in the library putting back books but of course as the bookworm she is she loved helping the librarians.

Soul had asked for help and her and gladly helped him. She had turned out to be pretty smart and was very good in the subject. Maka had tutored him and he actually got a D in Stein's class thanks to Maka. They had eventually started dating and he and she had never fallen out in love with each other.

"I know you know best since you are you. But I know you well Soul and I know this isn't the road you want to walk down. What will happen when you get thrown out on the streets for not paying the bills? What will happen then? You will be left all alone to struggle for your own life on the street." She looked sad at him. This is it. This is the time when she will make one last try to slip pass his defense also known as alcohol and try to reach his heart. He deserves to fight for but she can't fight for him forever. She is only human.

"Do you think I care? All I need is my vodka and I will be all right."

"You won't because you won't even have money for vodka. The alcohol will leave you too and you will be all alone on the streets and don't think I will give you money for alcohol because I'm tired of fighting your battles. I'm tired of taking care of you. I need a man who isn't a coward who only drowns himself in grief and alcohol!"

Soul snapped. There was a loud sound of the glass bottle breaking into millions of shards and then a loud cracking noise of Maka's nose. Soul had dropped his vodka bottle and punched Maka right in her nose. She cried out loudly in pain and landed on the glass shards. She felt pain in her face and pain from the wounds on her right side of her body where she had landed on the glass shards.

She looked up in fright at her boyfriend. Fear coursed strongly through her veins and now, for the first time it got mixed with noradrenaline. Her mind told her to flee from the man. She could no longer stay or else he might kill her. She tried to reach him but he was unreachable.

"It's over. I don't want to see you ever again."

She quickly got up from the ground and her side ached from the pain and the blood from her nose soon covered her mouth and jaw.

Her feet took her quickly to the hallways and she quickly threw on her jacket but leaving the shoes. She ran out of the house and got inside of her car and started it.

From the kitchen window Soul saw Maka get into the car and back from the driveway before she speeded away.

Panic went through his clouded mind but it wasn't just one panic. It was two panics. The panic for the broken bottle of vodka and the panic of hurting Maka and seeing her leave him.

He was full-out panicking. He had run right into a wall and he can only chose to go right, to chase Maka and give up on the alcohol or go left to kneel down on the floor and lick the liquid up from the bare and dirty floor.

He didn't mean to punch Maka and hurt her like this! But he had punched her and slapped her lot before but he never meant for her to hurt her. And those eyes, the eyes of fright and he was the target of all of her fear. He scared her away, just like everyone else when he was a kid.

A choice is here and there must be an answer. He is the choicer but it wasn't his alcohol clouded brain which choice. It wasn't either his mind, it was his feet. His feet ran toward the hallways. Since he wasn't sober, he stumbled and wobbled a lot. It took time to get his shoes and coat on but he managed.

"Maka!" He screamed while he got out of the house and locked it tightly behind him. "Maka! Maka where are you!" He knew she wouldn't be close at the speed she and taken off in but it felt good to call out her name.

He wasn't going to lose her. She had been the one who stayed up with him at night because of his grief and he had let it take a hold of him and now Maka was punished because of it.

The cold air bit his bare cheeks. It was too cold for his liking but he didn't care. Maka is his goal and he is determined to reach it. Never again is he going to let anything bad happen to her ever again.

How did everything even happen? What was it that went wrong? All he could come up with was the grief of his brother's sudden absence and the alcohol's arrival. Why had he been so weak? He had never been this down before. He had always had Maka and wonderful friends who loved him but he had made them all give up on him. He is a jerk and a bastard. He won't ever let himself fall to this level ever again. He is the one who is supposed to protect Maka and look how he ended up. He instead beat her to a bloody mess. He is the one who is supposed to be strong but he can't even be that. Damn it this is not cool!

He walks outside for what seemed like hours. He called her name and he had managed to sober up a little and his head started to heart badly, even his mind and heart. He had realized more and more what he had done and he felt even worse when Wes died. Of course the pain of Wes's death was still there but the absence and the pain of Maka ran strong.

He was walking alongside a road which was the road toward Tsubaki's house and he figured that is the first place she would come to since her father's place is last place on earth she would ever go to.

The way was long and once in a while passed an ambulance sounding loudly. He noticed a crowd a little further up and his curiosity got the best of him, besides, one of those people may know something about Maka.

He walked up to where the crowed stood and he noticed police tape was everywhere with the word 'accident' was written on.

"Excuse me, have you-" He was about to ask an old lady of she had seen Maka but his question got answered in the most horrible way ever. Right in front of him was her car. It was in the gutter and the front was crushed against a tree but he was most bothered with all the blood on the front of the car and the tree. His eyes caught sight of two men sipping a person in a black bag and he knew all too well that last glance of ash blood hair caked with blood.

His world fell apart in just a matter of seconds. His emotions were on the top. He hated himself; he despised himself more than he had ever hated anyone. He was the one who had driven her away and was the cause of her driving down the gutter and into a tree.

He had lost his friends, his family, and now his lover. He had lost everything and he wasn't going to turn toward the bottle. He lost his lover because of it and he wasn't going to ever drink. All his hatred was toward alcohol and himself.

Heck, he doesn't deserve to live because of what has happened. He dedicated his life toward Maka before he lost his way and now he has lost his lover and best friend.

He knew he could have done better, he knew he could have saved her. But he chose not to. He would rather lie down on his couch and drink everything away than live happily with Maka.

He could have saved a very important life to him. But he couldn't.

He could no longer watch this. His stomach felt weird and he whipped around and ran away. He ran and he ran until he was back at his place. He ran up the stairs with still his outdoor clothes on. Quickly opening the toilet lid he threw up. It was like an eternal waterfall.

When he was done he breathed heavily while he bawled his eyes out. But then, he caught sight of a small box behind the toilet and his world broke down even more. He found a pregnancy test and it was positive.

They had still had sex. Maka had even tried to make him feel better that way but it hadn't worked. She had gotten herself pregnant and she had been pregnant for three weeks before she and their baby had died.

Soul hadn't just lost one person, but his lover and his baby. He couldn't have saved them. He just needed to stop the drinking and find comfort in Maka instead on the bottle of alcohol but he couldn't. He is a cowered like she told him.

If he just had known how to save a life he wouldn't just have saved Maka but his dear child and their future. But know he doesn't have a future.

He roughly pulled out a drawer so it fell down on the ground and he picked up one of the razors he kept in the drawer and with a quick cut, he sliced his throat. The light was leaving him just like all the sanity and love had left him. He had forced it all away just like he forced his blood to leave his body.