Please not him, anything but him. He was my world, my light. He loved me in my darkest hour, the only one to see light in what I had only seen as shadow. He helped me to put myself back together, piece by piece, after being broken for far too long. How could I let him go like this, after something like that? I banged on the door. The sound was thick and loud, echoing in the dim room. Again and again my fists hit the door. Over and over I would try to reach him it was all I could do. If I was worth anything it was to save him as he saved me. This boy, this man, who had only ever been kind and filled with warmth, he was suffering. It was my fault he was meeting this fate. The weight of the guilt shoved me to my knees but I dare not stop my attack on the door. My eyes were clouded from tears and I couldn’t hear any more. I was underwater, drowning in my own fear and panic. Blood rushed through me. Uncomfortable heat crawled up my neck and choked the air from my lungs.
My shoulders heaved again and again with every croaking sob. It was a coarse sound that left me empty and gutted. Hcouldn't’t be gone. How could I live in this darkness without him? How could I put myself back together again after this? He who only deserved a life of goodness was met with that of death. I could just imagine what they were doing to him. Each blow I delivered to the door would be weak in comparison to the blows they’d deliver to him. His pain was my pain. His death would spell mine. Did my soul cry out to match his?
“Let me in. Please just let me in.” I shouted through the soreness in my throat. “He didn’t do it.” My voice didn’t belong to me. I was an animal roaring at a wall that would never budge. I had to roar though or else what was a voice worth in the first place.
Hours must have past but I kept hammering at that damn door. My eyes could see little in the faint light but I must have at least dented it by now. A tension started in my shoulders and only grew tighter as it traveled to my hips and then my knees. Anxiety pulled me as taught as a wire and fear simply liked to pluck a tune.
I thought I knew despair. I thought I had met that friend long ago and killed it dead. This though, this was different. I had been shown heaven. I had dreamed of a shining new life with him at its center. Now it had been torn away. My heart was missing and the hole left only seemed to grow wider. It yawned with the darkness inside, threatening to swallow me whole.
His smile, crooked and sly danced before me. His hair falling in front of his eyes like a curtain keeping light from blinding me, or his hands too big it seemed when they held my own, these were the things I remembered now. These were the things I choked on. He used to whisper to me when all the world was asleep, that I was an angel sent to free him, to unlock his heart with a simple twist of a key. I wonder if he knew I was awake then. I wish I could hear him now.
My own voice was ragged, torn to shreds. Everything was raw from the inside out, my throat, my hands, and my heart. I had told myself never again. I had been convinced that love was a feeling that only ever leads to weakness. I had shattered once and I knew that if it happened again I would never mend. Yet here I am again screaming at the top of my lungs for a person that made me weak and strong all at the same time.