The Best You Can Do...

Him...

Reality. He walked towards her house, hoping that the steps never end. Dreading the reality that he would have to face, he walked slowly. It was an emergency, but the reality was frightening.

He thought of the day when he last took that route. The purple and orange leaves freshening up the atmosphere, dropping with the wind; just like how she may have today.

A car passed him by, and swooshed him out of his happy place, putting him right into the spot of misery. Contemplating the level of damage, he immersed himself into reverie again. He imagined himself holding her, trying to lower the pain; but something held him back. Could it have been the way she had talked to him the last time? It wasn't her fault, though. He did manage to get himself into trouble this time. Serious trouble.

He felt his heart sink to the bottom, and remembered that sordid moment. The temptation of a minute second, the aftermath of which did not work in his favor at all. She followed a graceful approach of striking his guilt, though. Did she try to pull herself together after that? It wasn't supposed to be easy, he thought.

The entrance door to her house was open. He let himself in.

Her...

She just got home from a crazy night shift. Every part of her body ached; she hadn't slept for days. Faith was elusive at the moment. She brushed away the momentary, yet lingering thought and got up to fix herself some breakfast. Looking out the window, she realized that winters were approaching. The dew looked pretentious, and the chill that she almost felt on her drying up skin seemed to tear her away from the world.

She finally mustered the courage to write a diary entry. Repeating the morbid memory over and over again in her head had led to this. The only thought that seemed to appeal to her a little, was that she could get it out on paper and get it over with. She sat on the table, with a glass of wine she sipped as she planned to start. Words froze.

Giving up, she just went to bed with the drab and dead feeling. She needed to have people around. Human contact was now restricted to the five hour shift that she worked. It was hard, as she wasn't able to bring herself to talk about what happened with her. What he did. Deception didn't let her live or die. Suicide was not an option.

She took out her cell phone and sent him a text message that said, 'I die today', to him. God knows what came over her, to send that text to him! She had vowed never to talk to him again, unless the subject matter contained a list of abuse words (which she hadn't managed either). The wine went down slowly, and she became drowsy. The last she saw was a glimpse of him walking through the door.

Them...

He took her to the hospital. She was diagnosed of pneumonia. There was no sign of her taking any medicines for curing it. By the looks of it, she wasn't even aware that she was coming down with something. It had dragged on long enough to be deadly.

He sat beside her, cradling her head in his arms. Her pale white skin made the guilt grow stronger. He had brought her so close to death. It was him. He did a horrible thing out of temptation, and walked away without a second thought. Abandonment flushed the health out of her.

Three months, he avoided her. 92 days. 2208 unending hours of utterly depressing thoughts. How does a person live on feeling the guilt of almost killing the girl that he loves? Walking away was not the last option, but he did it anyway.

He sat there, staring at her, feeling an increasing amount of remorse with every beep that indicated her heart was beating. He sat there, because it was too late to be able to take the situation in his hands. It was the best that he could do.