Chapter 6
Greg
My worst heartbreak was nothing you'd expect of me. It still hurts when I think about what happened, the wrenching memory twisting in my gut until I find myself in tears yet again. Love doesn't turn itself off when the loved one dies. It lives forever.
It just wasn't fair, not fair at all. I cried myself to sleep that day, then got up out of my cold, lonely bed that night and drug myself to work. When the others asked me what was wrong I told them I was fine, just had a headache. It's not like any of them would've understood. No, what we shared was private, just between us, and my grief would be the same.
His name was Luke, and though it all happened a few years ago, I still have his picture in a magnetic frame inside my locker. I have a second, larger photo in a silver frame beside my bed, right next to his pillow. He's smiling a little in that one, his clear blue eyes trained on some long-forgotten thing behind me. That one was taken about two months before I lost him. The one on the dresser was taken earlier, just a couple of weeks after we met. He was so young then. I already loved him at that point, enough so that I was already sharing my bed with him - of course, he really didn't give me a lot of choice in the matter. I came out of the shower one morning after work, and there he was waiting for me. He slept there with me every day after that. He was the heart and soul of unconditional love, the only creature devoted enough to willfully brave my snoring just to be close to me - but that was Luke for you. He slept in my arms on cold nights, next to me on warm ones. I still miss being able to pull him close and rub my cheek against his. He always smelled so good.
He died tragically seven months after we met. He'd had an ongoing eye problem, then one morning I noticed him staggering as he made his way to the kitchen. I took him to the doctor, and the news was devastating. He had encephalitis, the result of FIP, a nasty, invariably fatal viral illness. They could treat the symptoms, maybe buy him a modest improvement, maybe a little time, but there was no cure. My best friend was going to die, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. They gave me a little green bottle of medicine and a syringe, then sent us home.
I held him in my arms and rocked him that night, buried my face in his sweet-smelling fur. He purred as loudly as ever, untroubled by the tears dampening his neck. The next morning he was staggering all over the place, and he wouldn't eat. Each morning after that he slipped further downhill. By the end of the week he had stopped eating or drinking, and he could no longer walk well enough to make it to his litter box. A few days later he was utterly miserable, and he could no longer even hold his head up. I made the hardest decision of my life that day and set him free from a body that no longer worked. Losing him hurt me like no lover ever had, but I owed him a comfortable journey. After all, he would've done the same for me. I know he would have.
This is in memory of the real Luke, a beloved and special soul who just crossed that Rainbow Bridge day before yesterday. He was so young, and the illness that took him was terrible. It's just not fair.