The first day of this, of us, might have been the last.
The line of your shoulders. The shadows under your eyes. Your essence, the heart of you, fading before me.
You would have gone, and that would have been the end. Twenty minutes early, a permanent finality.
It was desperation, nothing more, that compelled me.
"John, are you okay?"
"No. I… I'm not okay. I'm never gonna be okay." Your resolute despondency that day haunts me still. "But we… I just have to accept it. It is what it is, and what it is…" Your eyes met mine for the first time in what felt an eternity. What I saw, what I feared you'd seen, mistakenly, in return, was goodbye. "It's shit."
In my weakened state, with my faculties not fully recovered - you are guarded still, cautiously tentative, despite my efforts to calm your fears and ease your self-flagellation - my most provocative rebuttal could not delay your retreat.
Then a reprieve, a stay of execution. A miracle (perhaps my mind is not fully well), despite, or in spite of, the source. A debt repaid; the woman's life for mine. For ours.
One obscene notification, and there you were, open before me. Your heart spoken between the words. A deduction, and suddenly, salvation.
"Happy Birthday."