"You should believe me. I won't leave you alone."
"You're lying."
He hated how she said it so flatly, how accepting she was of it. He hated it when his words were a lie, too, and he hated that she could know it.
But even now he could still remember the way he held her back then, taking her slim wrist and pulling her down with him and embracing her, to comfort her and to comfort him.
He could remember her reaching out for him when she pulled him back, so long ago. 'Don't leave me!' And he'd taken her hand back then.
But now he had. He'd left her, just as she'd begged him not to, as he'd promised not to. Never mind that it couldn't have been avoided. He'd let it happen. That guilt was with him, and that was why he was irrational. It kept him that way.
And so he drank, and he drank, and he drank. It didn't really matter anymore. He could still do his job. And the alcohol glazed things over some of the time. Sometimes, he could pretend that he hadn't left her. That she didn't say 'Farewell'. And that she wasn't gone and that maybe she would still come back, safe and sound like nothing of the past few months after their peace was shattered happened.