Chapter Five

I don't own Duo, but I take full responsibility for all the hell I'm putting him though right now.

//Ten

We left behind the busy crowd.

So it seems we slow down.

Meet me with a way out through the lies.

Nowhere, going nowhere in the fake yellow light.

The feelings change so fast.

Safety scares them away.

I can't bring myself to say it's my own advice I need.

Nowhere and then nowhere.

Living trapped inside the chase.

Our weekness is the same.

We need poison sometimes.

So take another drink with me.

Blame no one.

Look in my eyes and blame no one.//



I remember that afternoon well. I say afternoon, as one would use morning. Even though I hadn't slept in over four days, I had the tiredness one feels when they first wake up, not when they are horribly deprived of sleep. It took me four whole days to realize how tight my stomach was. It was so tight that it pained me to move, to breath. I headed to the kitchen; but fate had something a little different in mind.

When I opened the fridge I was shocked to see it empty. Not normal empty; you know, when you have a little milk, and some peanut butter, this was /empty/ empty. The cupboards were the same. My choices for breakfast were ketchup or marshmallow cream that had an expiration date about six years back. Hilde would buy that stuff to make fudge around the holidays, so I guess it actually had a pretty good shelf life if you think of it that way.

I could of resorted to my old means of survival via take out. That is, I could of it I hadn't neglected to pay the phone bill. I didn't see a point to having a phone when I never used it, but I sure as hell wished I had one then.

I guess I could have always taken my chances with the marshmallow cream and waited until the next day, or just ignore the hunger pangs and go back to my somber moping, but I was compelled to do something about my pathetic food situation. As my stomach growled I put on some dingy old jeans and grabbed the keys to my car.

I browsed my way around the grocery store in the same zombie like trance I always had. I was so out of touch with reality that I couldn't even recall what I wanted. I stood in front of the bread section for a good ten minutes before I remembered the brand I always bought. I'm not kidding either, ten whole minutes.

I was to hungry, to wear to think. No, it wasn't just the hunger; it was the eight years of self-destructive depression that finally did me in. The depression was a cancer that ate away at my soul and body for eight long years. My body simply had no more to give, so it gave in. Right in between the oranges and the pears is when I couldn't carry on any longer. My knees buckled, and the rest of me quickly followed.

I was so lucky to have collapsed in the middle of that busy supermarket. If I didn't give up there, I would of at my home, all alone. I wouldn't have been found until the stench of my decay lofted up from under my shut apartment door, and someone finally checked on me. That's what would have happened, I had nothing left.

They rushed me to the hospital, where I came to a few hours later. I was diagnosed with malnutrition and extreme exhaustion. That meant nothing to me. I was so upset when I woke up, not because I was in the hospital, but because I was /in/ the hospital. I wanted to die, why couldn't they just let me die?

I retaliated the only ways I could. I constantly took the IV out of my arm and refused to eat. It was only a mater of time before I was transferred to the psychiatric ward. Yeah, you know where the story goes from here; because you were the reason I stopped fighting against myself. In the psychiatric ward I met my final hope: I met you.

At first, in my stubborn eyes, you were just another damn doctor with your damn theories on everything. No, you were worst then those other doctors. You were a shrink. That was how I felt, until I heard you speak. Your voice had the consistency of cream, the texture of silk. Those words you spoke, no mater what their meaning, fed my heart, they gave me life. I realized later why your voice had such a way with my ears. You sounded like her, like Sister Helen.

That was when I began to believe in God. Sister Helen always told me that no mater what happened to me that God had a plan for me, she also promised me that she would always be with me. I learned both to be true that day.

She had taken your beautiful form, and used your lips to do her speaking. This was the only way I can explain how I managed to survive.

I began eating again, my body began to accept the medication they gave me, and I began to see your daily. I had to pull some strings for that last one. It took me so long to get that woman up front to switch me under your care. So I started seeing you for my therapy, everyday. Finally I had someone to tell.

You already know how my church family, my wife, my children, and my girlfriend died, but you never knew why I truly was so depressed over it. I neglected to tell you how I saw myself to blame for those deaths. I didn't have to; you saw it in my eyes. I didn't have to hide from you; I didn't have to be afraid that you would fear me.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I look into her eyes from my chair in front of her. Tears are streaming down her cheeks, thank God I told her to make sure she wore waterproof mascara. The tears dirty with her makeup run to the corners of her full lips, and then down her chin. She doesn't notice them splash onto her notes, she doesn't see the flesh toned circles they make on the paper.

I continue with the end of the story, the finally. "Because of you I can except their deaths. I know it's cruel, but it's because of them that I met you. When I was with Hilde I thought she was my match, when I was with Elisia I thought she was my truelove, but now I know that you are my soul mate. After I met you, I couldn't image spending my life with anyone else.

"I know that you are the one," I heard the little clock chime. Our session is over, but I'm not ready to go, "I thought I knew with Hilde and Elisia, but with you I'm positive. So before I ask you something, I thought it would be fair to tell you the circumstances for those incidents. I'll let you decide if the curse as the true Shinigami is upon my soul, or if it's just a figment of my imagination, something to help explain the death that surrounded me.

"There is something that I have kept for a long time." I pull a black box out of my back pocket, "Something that someone once told me I should give to someone else I loved. When he said that I thought he was crazy, I couldn't imagine giving it away. But… he was right." I open the box and watch as a new wave to tears escapes her eyes as she looks down at the silver bracelet with the little hearts etched into it.

"I know it's not a ring or anything, but I want you to pick that out. Basically what I'm asking Jacqueline is; will you be my wife?"