Thanks for the lovely feedback!!
I am soooo sorry about the delay. I have been abroad and I have been sick, but those are lame excuses. Writer's block is my best one actually. But I finally sat down to complete it. I'm not at all that happy with the way I wrote this though, it feels too different from the first chapter. Oh well, feedback is still totally appreciated.
A harsh wind sweeps me off my feet,
and as I wrestle with my demons;
an angel steps ahead and offers me
a shelter in the storm
and spreads her wings to help me keep you warm.
They had been sitting there on the floor for hours that night. Not until the sun was rising, did he get her to speak. She was leaning against him, totally exhausted, when she was finally ready to let him in.
"He's gone" she whispered. Her voice cracked and her hands were trembling, and he could do nothing to make her feel better. She wasn't sick, he couldn't cure her, like he would have if she had been hurt. It broke his heart to know that whatever he said, whatever he did, it wasn't enough to take the pain away.
Never had he felt more useless than at that moment.
"I prayed, and I prayed" she told him, struggling not to cry. "I prayed" she repeated, her voice filled with an anger and sadness he didn't know she possessed. "It's my fault".
"What Deb? What is your fault?" he asked, holding her closer, knowing nothing but the burning desire to heal her and make her smile, that way she always did when she saw him.
She shifted position slightly to look up at him, but she didn't smile. Instead her eyes were filled with tears, and suddenly he understood.
Oh God, he thought, unable to do anything for a moment. The pain in his best friend's eyes was so constant, so piercing, he didn't know what to say or do.
"He's gone" she repeated softly, confirming what he already knew. And with those words, she fell apart in his arms, leaving him to pick up the pieces of something that had been shattered and would never truly heal.
Later, he would find out the whole story. He'd listen to his best friend telling him about a rainy day, how a family went for a drive, and how a child never came home. How she blamed herself, because she was the one to give him up, she was the one to leave him with a mother who would fall asleep by the wheel and crash into a truck. She wasn't there when her child was hospitalized for weeks, there was nothing she could do, and now she would never see another picture of her son.
He had listened to her saying that she'd never stopped thinking about him, that she'd always loved him, that she wished she had made a different decision that day that he was born. And worst of all, he'd listened to hear stating that she wanted to die.
She didn't deserve to live, and she wanted to be with him, wherever he was, to protect him, like she'd failed to do that night.
It didn't matter what he said, she wanted to die, and it scared him.
"Deb!" he shouted. She was standing on the edge, and he instantly realized that she was going to jump. But that was one thing he was not going to let her do. He'd let things get past him, like that time he found her after she'd taken too many sleeping pills, but letting her stand on the edge of the roof, planning on cutting her life short, that was not something he was prepared to watch.
She looked at him, but it felt like she was looking right through him. Like he wasn't there. Like she'd done for so long.
"Deb" he repeated, pleadingly, reaching out for her hand. "Please".
And finally, finally she acknowledged his existence. She looked into his eyes, and that was all he needed. He took her hand and carefully led her down and then she unexpectedly wrapped her arms around him. He embraced her, let her cry into his coat. And at that moment he knew that no matter what, he was going to save her from herself.
No matter what, he was going to make her smile again.
And here I linger in the silence
that brings a haunted spirit peace.
And I hope, I hope you have the strength
to look at me and see
the angel in the room.