"Talk to me," Sarah spoke. Her voice was calm and soft, no malice, no anger. She stared into Ryan's eyes, until he jerked away, and let out a low, bitter laugh. This was the fourth day in a row that he was seeing her. So what if he was keeping count? It helped keep him sane.
"What the fuck do you want?" Ryan snapped at her, his voice thick and laced with anger. He wasn't mad at her. He couldn't be mad at her. It wasn't her fault. None of it was her fault. Both of them knew that. He was fully aware of it, reminding himself of that every day.
Of course it wasn't her fault. How could it be? She couldn't help that she trusted so easily. That she had this light about her that just drew people, good and bad, to her. She couldn't be responsible for someone else's damaged psyche. None of it was anything that she could control. She hadn't asked for any of it. She had been fine; she was back on track. Then one day, it all came crashing down. Her life had changed in just a few hours. Everything that she had built up had come crashing down in just a few fucking hours and none of it was her fault.
"Ryan—" she started; he blocked her out, not listening to a word she said as he gulped down more vodka. If he was going to deal with this it was going to be the same way he had been dealing with the past few years: drunk off his ass, always nursing a hangover.
"Ryan. Look at me." Her voice was just barely above a whisper, pleading to the broken and worn man. And he did. Ryan turned his head away from his bottle to look at her, and he cringed at what he saw. It was the same thing he saw after the first sight of each visit. It was her, as the last time he had seen her in person. Her body broken and bruised, her hair disheveled, and her eyes—the most horrendous sight one could see.
Without hesitation he turned away from his handiwork. It was his fault after all. He drowned his thoughts in more liquor before collapsing into his desk chair. He slammed the bottle down beside him and dropped his face into his hands, holding back everything that was bottled up inside of him.
"Ryan." Her voice this time came out loud, demanding his attention. "This is not your fault." The last part came out low and breathy, drawing his attention from his hands back to her. Unlike earlier, instead of her usual appearance, she looked the same as the first time they had met—carefree and void of worry, nothing weighing on her shoulders, no ugly past to bear.
That's when it hit him: he couldn't stay this way anymore. He couldn't stay numb and emotionally comatose. He stood up, his bottle coming with him, gripped firmly in his fist; he took a hard swallow of the liquor before everything started gushing from his mouth.
"But that's the thing, Sarah, it's my fault. All of this—" he motioned at her, "—is my entire fault. I promised you, that I you would keep you safe. I told you that you weren't going to be harmed. I gave you my word that you were going to be fine. That nothing was going to happen to you. You trusted me, and I failed you. You let your guard down because you believed in me, and do you know what happened? It cost you your life, it cost you everything! What happened to you is my fault because I assured you that nothing was going to happen to you but I failed. How am I supposed to believe that it's not my fault? I fucked up, and you got hurt. I couldn't keep you safe and it's because of me that you're not here." His voice cracked as he spoke, spilling out all of his emotions, all of his anger.
He backed himself up against a wall and slid down, wishing desperately that the wall could just absorb him. He took another drink, effectively draining the bottle of anything but small droplets of liquor that rested on the inside. He dropped the bottle beside him and let out a heavy sigh. He sat there silent and exhausted, waiting for something to break the quiet. Sarah sat down next to him, mirroring him almost to a tee. She turned and looked at him, still empty and staring forward.
"It was going to happen no matter what. You couldn't have controlled it anymore than I could've. It was inevitable. We both know that he wasn't going to give up. I was the last piece. I was the loose end. All loose ends have to be tied up eventually, don't they? What happened was out of your power. You need to stop blaming yourself for what happened. I don't blame you."
"Do you really believe that?" he asked, slowly looking over at her.
"Yes, I do," she whispered, "and you need to too. You can't live like this forever. You have to stop beating yourself up."
As they stared at each other he felt a small wave of peace wash over him. It wasn't much but it was a start.
"Please don't go," he breathlessly spoke, still not breaking the eye contact between him. She never spoke again; her eyes spoke enough. They were filled with regret and sorrow. Ryan knew what was coming up. The next thing he realized was he was alone. She was gone and he was alone.