Persistence
"Don't you ever think you're being too harsh with him?"
Jowd can picture her every move on the other end of the phone line. Her fingers twisting a wire that has seen years of pain, her eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Apparently, it is a game she never gets tired of playing.
He hears what is going on in her mind; he knows her question was a massive understatement, an iceberg tip with layers and layers of frustration below, one for each day of discomfort, thickening as time goes by. He sighs.
He is just waiting for her burden to become too heavy.
Jowd anticipates that day — the day when both of them will finally give up and move on to their lives, leaving behind what deserves to be forgotten. Since he chose he would pay for that death, guilt has erased his presence from the snapshots of their past.
He is bound to die now. He cannot see the holes his disappearance has left.
He has not heard from him in forever, and yet he knows exactly what she is talking about. He retrieves a ghost of friend in his memory, just to push it away a second later.
He pictures it, the patience melting and fading from their hearts. He wants to feel them slipping away, in a world where they won't need to know how tired and defeated he is.
But she called tonight, and yesterday, and the day before that. She will call tomorrow. He has to stay strong.
"Can't you see, Lynne?" he tells her, smiling. "It will never be enough."