Loss

Thirteen

It should have been me. I'm the one who was supposed to die. It should have been me running from my fears and my body and my life. It should have been me. But it wasn't. It was Kutner. The fun one. The one who should have made it. I ignore everything, as if that will make it go away. I'm a bad person. I don't even enjoy the life I have. He did. He deserves to be here. A whimper tears it's way through my body. I don't want to cry. I tremble with the sheer effort of not crying. My vision is like looking through water. My lips are probably trembling like a girl in some sob story. The rain pounds heavily on the roof. The wind rushes against the windows. I haven't yet turned on a light in my apartment. The world knows that a life was wasted here. In this city. And that's what finally pushes me over the edge. Shoves those tears out from behind my closed eyelids and streaming down my cheeks. Pooling in the hollow of my throat. When they dry, my skin will be tight and itchy. But, for now, the little droplets seem like the cure for this overwhelming pain. Seems like, at the very least, they will make the hurt ebb. But they don't. They make it worse. My own whimpers drive the ache in deeper. It settles; a tight coil in my stomach. All I want to do is curl up with a warm body and cry. And keep crying until I have no more tears. And, even though I know it won't, I still feel like it might help. Or maybe its just wishful thinking that has me wanting to let out all these pent up emotions. Sadness. Betrayal. Guilt. Hurt. Anger. The rest of the team probably feels the same… The thought holds no consolation. Thinking doesn't help. The more I think about it, about him, the more I cry. The more I cry, the more I think. It's a vicious cycle. Eventually my tear ducts will dry out though. Maybe then it'll stop… When they dry, the only thing that actually stops are the tears. The sobbing continues. Dry sobbing. Nothing has ever cut so deep as this. Slashing and tearing and leaving a thick and ever-bleeding path of scar tissue in its wake. Eventually blood stops flowing. Scars fade. Emotions don't always last. Sometimes a moment can drag on like eternity. Sometimes it'll be gone in the blink of an eye. This day, this moment, is one that will stick around. It will haunt my dreams, my thoughts, my life. It will appear in unexpected places and force me to relive it. It will strive to be remembered.

I'll create better memories to replace it. The better ones are the ones pass in a blink though, so I'll have to gather thousands of them. Thousands to crowd out this one day. That's my goal. To forget this day without forgetting Kutner. As I fight my battle of hiccups and dry sobs, I attempt a small smile. I've found my own silver lining.


This is all there was... Eventually, I will go back and do the rest of the characters...