He paced around his room wearing nothing but what she had given him. There was nothing that was around him that was him anymore. Every part of his being had been infused with her, there were picture frames around the room, her scent on the sheets, memories of her. If he could simply forget that she existed it would be so much easier, but he could never do that. He could never take his mind apart and pick her from ever crack and crevice that she had manifested herself. All the damage that she had done to him was what he had done to himself, and only he could bring himself back. But he couldn't see that, all he could see was her face. Her face, and her hair, and her touch, and her breath, and her eyes, and her fingers, and her touch, and her voice, and her laughter, and her smile, and...
They met in a coffee shop as most do in a badly written tale. He was sitting, staring off into space because it was there, and she wandered in because she was hungry and the shop was there. There wasn't any magic connection; there wasn't love at first sight. There was a spilt purse and a helping hand. The helping hand eventually turned into movies and laughter, which moved into feelings that could not be communicated with anything but looks. The looks faded, as did her health. Then, there wasn't even her face. Only her smell, her memories, her sheets, her bed, her clothes, her food, her...
Fears. One time she told him that she was afraid of the dark. That it held her in a grasp that no other lover could have. And that she was scared. So very scared of it. He only held her. Held her, but not as tightly, not as well as that darkness. As much as he squeezed her against him, part of it was always touching her, and he could never block it from her. It would always touch her. Then he decided that there was nothing he could say to it, it was merely something that you grew out of when you were a child. But she insisted, and she was still frightened to the point where he kept the bathroom light on. Only then did she slumber, and even then it was fitful. Sometimes he would wake in the middle of the night to the silhouette of her back, her face turned from him and outlined in the sickly yellow light. The only other time he would ever see that colour reflected on her was when he was days from losing her forever. She looked like popcorn. And she was still afraid of the dark.
A few weeks, a month later maybe, and he was functioning. He walked down the streets because they were there and because he had a job, and he was supposed to be there. He ate, he slept, and he breathed. His life was now a haze, an existence that wasn't real. The only time where he actually thought was lying in the dark in his room, curled and tangled in the sheets that still smelled, if ever so faintly, of her. He hadn't washed them. He might never. He never moved her pictures; his room was still filled with her things. There was a bowl in the sink that she had eaten out of. Her soap in the bath, because she loved taking them.
He thought it would be a surprise. Sneak in late, after work and surprise her. He heard the splash of water, and she knew she was in the bath. She had probably been there for almost an hour; she loved them. He came to the door of the bathroom and said her name. She had responded happily, acknowledging that it was indeed he, and then he turned off the lights and stepped into the room. He had never heard such a noise before. He almost fell back out of the room, ripping his nails into his ears as he collapsed to the ground. Women could scream, but not like that. I'm afraid of the dark, the dark the dark the dark the dark. Incessant, it went on, and he fumbled for the light switch; which he just couldn't get to in time to make her screeching come to a halt. When the light flicked on, she was there, curled up in the side of the bath rocking back and forth and whimpering. She had grabbed a towel, which she held ripped to her chest, a trickle of blood on her arm from a sudden crash against the side of the bath. Briefly he remembered watching the news and seeing a whore in the same position, after she had been raped and beaten by a client. Torn, bleeding, and curled up, mouthing nothing. I'm scared of the dark, dark dark scared.
They even went to counselling for it. The doctors would be around her, poking her, prodding her, and all the while he would sit there staring at her, hoping, hoping! And growing jealous. She was his, his to cure. Not the doctors. They could do nothing for her. Only he could cure her fears, only he could help her. But still, he always took her to the help sessions. Every time was the same. She would become less afraid there, but at home when the lights went out she would shiver, shiver shiver until he turned the bathroom light on, and framed her face, her lips, her hair, her..
Her fear of the dark disturbed him greatly. He wanted her to feel safe with him. He was always going to be there, able to take care of her and her every whim. He could protect her from it. And in the end he did, he cradled her in his arms and brushed her hair with his fingers, whispering their dreams to her softly as she drifted away from him. She shivered before she died, and he would always wonder if he really did fix her fear of the dark. He was there with her, as he promised. But he would never be sure if he had cured her fear. So every once in awhile, he would get out his hammer and unhook the nails in the floorboard to see her, to just make sure she wasn't scared anymore. And then he would go lay in the tangled sheets that he would never wash, and think about work the next day.