He was sitting in her apartment. Two weeks since she disappeared. He sat on her sofa. There was one of her books on the table. The last time she was here, she had probably gotten up too late. There was a half-full cup of coffee on the table. Sherry was a night owl. She came out of bed badly in the morning, sometimes she fell asleep again only to wake up just in time and then leaving the house completely precipitously. Sherry needed morning coffee to wake up and music to fall asleep in the evening. Or his voice. He had read to her many times. In the light of a candle. Sherry loved candle light. And the color red.
She smelled like roses. Well ... lately she had smelled more and more like cigarette smoke, heavy aftershave and blood. After him. Mixed with the sweet scent of roses. Matchless. Just her. Just Sherry.

They had kissed here on this sofa for the first time, had done more. He had kissed her here, at first only gently and then more and more demanding. He had taken her clothes off here, exploring her upper body, enjoying every second with her. It had felt like her love had rejoined all the broken pieces of his so often broken into two - and more parts - heart. So, it could beat again. She had made a life out of existence again. She had healed him. On this day, when he took her clothes off, they did not sleep with each other, and yet they were as close as possibly never again. He did not descend upon her like an animal, he just enjoyed their closeness and even if they had been lying here naked, nothing had happened. They had caressed, kissed, forgotten the time. Urges had played no role, there had been no goal. Everything could have happened but was nothing was necessarily needed. At some point he fell asleep, calmed down by her regular- though speeded up - heartbeat.

Many more times he had sat here with her on this couch. They kissed and undressed many more times even if they only would have gone further than cuddling, a single time after this one special time. Sometimes he'd silently wished for that, but he would never have admitted it. Just cuddling. That did not suit him. Not that all the submissive hundreds, thousands, lovingly mumbled or lustfully screamed out love confessions would have ever matched him. Thousandfold "I love you", hundreds "I need you." Tenfold "You are everything to me." One single "please ... please stay with me." As he tried to calm her down. When he begged her for forgiveness. When he tried to make her understand that his life was against her sister, and that he only ...

Wanted life.

So that he could be happy with her.

She had not stayed. He had made it clear that it was over. Thousand times "I love you.", A hundredfold "I need you." Tenfold "You are everything to me."

Destroyed.

By a single "I hate you."

Sometimes, forever was pretty short.

What followed was not only a torture for them. What followed was hell for him as he watched as Vodka locked her in the cellar when he was asked to bring her to her senses or to kill her.

Her. The woman he loved. More than his own life.

Now she was gone. Disappeared. Fled. Somehow.

She had not understood him. Not understanding that he just wanted to save their future. And sometimes even he had no choice.

Now he was sitting here. And next to him, left, right, four paws. A head. Whiskers.

He hated her cats. Not hated. Feared. They were unpredictable. And now he reached with one hand under the belly of a cat, picked her up, hugged her against his chest. And cried. Because these two little animals were all that remained of her.

He thought ... she would cure him. But no ... she had only broken him more.

Thousands of "I love you.", hundreds "I need you.", ten times "You're everything to me" and a single "please ... do not leave me."

Sometimes all that's left is...

Loneliness.