He sits beside her, feeling as cold and lifeless as she looks. He opens his mouth to speak - to say something that will make it all better - but his brain remains motionless, much like hers.
Even if he is capable of speech, there are no words.
Words are meaningless; empty, even. They are thrown around like worn rag dolls, constantly being maimed and mangled until the seams rip open and the hollow inside is revealed.
That's what words are - hollow. A way of communication and comfort, but nothing more.
The real words are the ones that remain unspoken; the ones that remain unheard of to man. The real words are the ones that cannot be expressed through speech or sound because their is simply no way to do so. Those who attempt to end up distorting and burying the true meanings and feelings under the empty and worthless words.
No; he cannot put a name or a label on what is known to others as love; he knows better.
He has felt love only as those who have been betrayed by it do.
He felt it for his father. Upon his father's death, the love remained, but it was tainted by the grief and anger that went along with it.
Then for Lauren. The love he felt for Lauren did not remain. In fact, the love evaporated into what we have labeled as 'hate.'
And though time and time again love found shelter in his heart, he found the label 'love' could not express what he felt for the woman now lying motionless before him.
What he felt for her was too strong for words and too delicate for interrogation.
It was planted in his stomach like a seed the first moment he saw her.
At that moment, she was not beautiful by any standards. Her bright pink hair was only mere shades away from her battered and swollen cheek. And even then, he saw past the unruly exterior and saw only her; the person she was underneath the disguise she had created for herself, though her disguise was much thicker than a coat of hair dye and a touch of makeup.
It was like walking into the light after weeks in the darkness; startling at first, but comforting and magnificent after your eyes adjust.
Laying eyes on her was like coming home. And when her eyes locked with his, he found himself feeling safer and humbler than he had ever before.
And over time, that feeling began to spread. The seed in the pit of his stomach blossomed and thrived; ravenously digesting every small droplet of water spinkled upon it, until every aspect of the feeling was fully developed.
The feeling drove him to places he never thought he would go, whether it be a run-down zoo in Santa Barbara or the far ends of Mexico City.
It confused him as well, this new feeling. He, in the past, had considered himself to be rather conservative, and the feeling was so powerful and so new, he didn't know what to do with it.
When she disappeared, or 'died,' the feelings that went along with his fathers death like pain and misery returned. However, because his feelings for her were so much stronger than love, the other feelings were magnified as well.
When Lauren came along, he allowed himself to feel for her; allowed her to blanket his pain and guilt with a sheet of warmth. Eventually, he came to love her. And while it wasn't the feeling he had had before, it helped mask and distort the pain that bared down on him like a 20 ton weight.
But when she returned, Lauren was forgotten as the feeling came back at full blast, and despite all of the pain and struggle they and others had to endure, they ended up together once again.
But all that led him here.
And here he sits, alone and confused. She lies next to him, but she can't answer him anymore.
He goes over and over in his mind how this could have happened - how he could have let this happen. After everything they had been through, this was not how it was meant to end. She was not supposed to be shot by Anna Espinoza so many times that all the doctors could do was remove the bullets and shove a tube down her throat to keep her alive.
The doctors come in and tell him she still has a chance, but its slim.
He is even more confused by the news.
The chance she has would leave her cripple from the neck down, plagued with constant pains and spasms; and that's only if she is able to pull through the painful recovery that could lie ahead, and THAT's only if she wakes up.
They give him the option of ending it all now; of not putting her on life support. The doctors tell him she is in unimaginable pain, but something fierce is holding her back and keeping her from letting go all together.
He knows it's him.
So he tries to figure it out - tries to name the feeling that has possessed and controlled him from the moment their eyes met - but he draws a blank.
They were supposed to be Syd and Vaughn forever. He always believed it. But in his heart, he has always known feelings like theirs were not meant to be - Feelings as powerful as the ones that they held were not supposed to exist.
But they did.
And she is the one paying for it. The feeling was so strong that it had to lead one of them to their death-bed, and the universe chose her.
And with that in mind, he realizes what the feeling truly means. Sure he has done things he never dreamed of doing for and because of her, but he never imagined this.
It's clear now, though, what he has to do.
The feeling is so engaging and so powerful, so consuming and so desperate, and so fueled and dependent on her feelings, that he has to let her go.
The feeling gave him more bliss and peace than he ever believed possible, and he knows it's time to give that back to her.
He once said he would do anything for her.
This is the anything he was unknowingly referring to.
She is his everything, so he has to let her go.