All The Things We Lost
II.
Breathless (adjective) - holding one's breath or having it taken away; breathing with difficulty, the inability to breathe.
...
Catherine
At the hospital, they tell her she had a collapsed lung. That she stopped breathing for a few minutes and that if it hadn't been for that roadside surgery, she would have suffocated to death. That's why she's having trouble breathing, they explain. That's why she's in so much pain.
They're wrong.
It's not her injury that makes everything hurt. It's the way her nurse says Vincent's name - softly, with familiarity, the way lovers do. It's the way he can't quite meet her eyes when he confesses that he had a past with her. It's the photographs and letters she finds in the box in the closet, the realization that they were more than just friends.
It's not her lungs that hurt when she breathes.
It's her heart.
Every time she sees them look at each other, every time they share a smile or a laugh, she feels a sharp pain in her chest. A lump forms in her throat, and in those moments, she can't breathe at all. In those moments, when she sees the two of them together, it's like the night she got shot all over again, except this time, he's not there to save her.
This time, she has to save herself, so she does what she does best – she throws herself into physical therapy, gets released from the hospital a week early, and returns to work. She's confined to desk duty, but even shuffling paperwork is preferable to sitting at home, waiting for him to show up outside her window and wondering if he's with her when he doesn't appear.
But she still wonders. She never used to think about what he did when he wasn't with her, but now, it's all she can think about.
And she hates it.
She hates feeling jealous, being worried, but she can't help it. She's afraid of losing him. A life without him in it is one that she can't imagine, one she doesn't want to imagine.
But for the first time, she realizes that it's a possibility.
He's become an integral part of her life, but maybe she's no longer such an important part of his. They - the two of them, whatever they are to each other - are unbalanced now. And she's not quite sure where to go from here. In relationships, it was always her who withdrew, refusing to let herself get in too deep.
But she did this time.
This time, she's in way too deep, she's in over her head, and the closer she gets, the further he slips away. This time, he's the one pulling away, and she can only watch, gasping as he fades out of view.
She tries to hold on tighter, for him, for them, but she can only fight for him if he's willing to fight for her too. And this time, she's the only one fighting. This time, she's alone.
That's why she's having trouble breathing. That's why she's in so much pain.
But the worst part is that there's nothing she can do about it. There's nothing she can do to make it better, so she does the only thing left to do - she lets him go. After all he's been through, he deserves to be happy, even if it's not with her. And after all she's been through, she deserves the same.
It's better this way, she tells herself, even as her breath catches in her throat. It's better this way for everyone.
Everyone except her.