It was June and Miami, it wasn't cold out, but that didn't necessarily mean I was warm. I wanted to go home, not that there was a whole lot of home to go back to—everything in it that had made me happy when there was life wasn't going to help now—but there was a bed, and a bed was all I needed.
I reasoned with myself that I didn't really love John Hagen, that I could be his friend but not his lover, but there was something. Chemistry or attraction, or, perhaps, even the first little budding of love and trust. I reasoned with myself that I didn't really love Tim Speedle, and I didn't, not in the way that one envisions love between two grown people. It was more I loved to bug him. Loved to see him give me that indignant glare and mumble something about being "way too damn cheerful" under his breath. I loved him in a completely platonic way, like I was his irritating, if adoring, kid sister. I reasoned with myself that I could like Ryan Wolfe if I stopped glaring at him and wishing that Horatio had looked harder for a decent replacement for Speed—not that you could ever replace Speed. Not that I could ever like Ryan Wolfe, even if Speed were still here.
Here. Where do you go after you die, anyway? If there isn't a heaven and a hell (and at this point, I hope there is, I hope John Hagen rots in hell) then you really are still here forever, in a box, in the ground. Here. Forever. Even if the entire city is levelled, you're still here, under the ground, worm food. So really, it's like you're here, but you're not. It's one of the damned loneliest feelings in the entire world, thinking like that. Why would anyone ever want to die? I understand not being afraid to die, I understand being prepared for death, but I don't understand wanting to die. Feeling so lonely that you want to take your loneliness to a whole new level—being here, but not being here.
I would have helped you, John. Why didn't you talk to me? I'd have helped you. Why is it that the last words you said were those words, those 6 words that made me wish I could take you home and apologize for ever being angry over something as stupid as a few other words, take you home and snuggle with you and assure you that I was going to make it all better?
It's my fault, isn't it? It's my fault for being so blindingly angry. You were in love with me, weren't you? You were in love with me and I held a grudge for far too long, and then when I stopped being mad, you thought everything was so lonely that you had to make it worse. Now I can't help you. Now I'm going to spend the rest of my life with that guilty sinking feeling that I should have been the one to save you.
Someone told me once that suicide is the most selfish act anyone could ever commit, and I'm beginning to agree with them. You thought it would make things easier if you just died, but it just made things worse. You left behind people, people who love you, or people who like you, or people who care about you. You left behind people who never got to say they were sorry for stupid things they did. You left them behind to think about things like where you were, and how could someone's body be here without them, without the things that made them up.
Sometimes I blame you for everything, because you were the one who said what you said, you were the one who initiated the fight, but "you started it" is something six-year-olds say. Sometimes I wish I'd gone on the drive with you, talked, and told you that while I think you're a nice person, people insulting other people I love…no, I wouldn't have said other, because that would've gotten us off topic, I would have said that while I think you're a nice person, people insulting people I love hurts my feelings. And now I can't. Now you'll never know that I didn't stay mad for long.
Selfish, indeed.
A/N: I liked Hagen. I've spent the past year of my life wishing that he'd have kept his mouth shut so he and Calleigh could be happy. And now they never will be. Boo.