Tears were welling up in her eyes and I was afraid. I was afraid because I wasn’t sure if I could keep a strong enough hold on the confusing chaos of emotions throbbing in my heart to comfort her for him. This wasn’t my job, it was his, and I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to do it; all I knew what that I I’d try. Tremors of pain shot down her spine and she shook at the tortuous action. Her unhappiness wound itself, like barbed wire, around my heart, constricting with her every sob.
The water in her eyes spilled over. Her lips parted and her voice caressed his name in her confession – she could not be with me because she would not be without him. Not just yet; maybe not ever.
She was everything I’d ever wished for; far beyond my wildest dreams. Every word that seeped from her mouth was more mysterious than the puzzles of life itself. The tinkling bells of her laugh were music in my ears; so much so that it put every classical melodic masterpiece to the greatest depths of shame. Her eyes told stories that caused such an irrevocable panic, such a powerful wave of sympathy, and such a drastic pull of intrigue that I wanted nothing more than to gaze into them until life took itself from me because, with her in it, I wasn’t about to let life go. She held herself, though grace eluded her, so delicately that her every move mirrored perfection. Her thoughts engulfed me and her beauty struck me blind; she did nothing less than stun me.


From the first time I’d spoken to her she’d been my entire world. She was like a drug to me and I just couldn’t get enough. She enticed my senses, shocking my system out of the seemingly everlasting slumber it had been partaking in for so long. I had awoken with a start; such a start that it threw me from the numb haze I’d been drowning in to an electrifying existence above that of anything I could have ever imagined. She’d removed me from the suffocating darkness I’d secluded myself to for so long and she did this so quickly, so fluently, that it took me by surprise; and I don’t do surprises. She injected into my life an exquisite color that none other than her could create. It overshadowed all the darkness, filling even the farthest corners of my mind with her image. I was falling in love with her, but she had eyes for no one but him.

She wept into my shoulder, whether over her love for him or over her guilt from hurting me, I knew not; but all the same, it mattered not. She was upset and that was more than enough to send a molten knife into my very being; shredding stealthily at my heart. I didn’t know what I could do to help her. I wasn’t about to confirm my fears; not out loud and not in from of her. Of course he would eventually fall in love with her back; he would be psychologically unstable not to. She was the most amazing being God had ever thought about creating and no sane human would pass up that chance. He was bound to love her and, when he did, she would be his, and I would be devastated. Maybe not devastated because I couldn’t have her; perhaps I’d only be completely destroyed because she would no longer need me. Once she had him, she would be happy and she would be safe; she would have no reason for friends like me.
She claimed that, not matter how things went with him or with any other guy she would always need me and, on the off chance that she didn’t, she would still want me around; I could never believe it. What would a person want with someone like me when they had ‘all they’d ever wanted’? I knew how strongly she felt for him; how deeply rooted those emotions were, just as I knew she’d never let them go. The very thought of him killed me inside, attempting to drown me in my violent rage and throw me back to the miserable life I’d led before. The scene of them together, the way his hand grazed her lower back; the way he looked deeply into her eyes, and if trying to convey some secret message; some message that would, no doubt, keep her lying awake for nights on end, the way all her looks deprived me of sleep. More than that, what pained me most what the truth; the truth that tonight, when she returned to me – her moon, as compared to him, her sun; I merely reflected the light of the happiness he was capable of casting – she would be tortured by the memory and frustrated, yet again, at her failure. He was already taken and still, he dragged her along behind him. It was this thought that infuriated me.
She thought of him as her only hope; the only thing she’d ever wanted this badly and the only thing she’d ever want so. She seemed absolutely oblivious to the fact that her every description of her love for him told a vast understatement of what I felt for her. I would jump, happily and excitedly, in front of a bullet for her. In the few short weeks I’d known her, she had become my life, and I would eagerly die so she’d keep hers.
With every word she said three things were inevitable: firstly, I reflected on her pain and wished to do everything in my power to make that go away, secondly, I fell more deeply in love with her, and thirdly, she greatly underestimated just how much I truly cared. She had put herself in a situation that she’d much rather not be in; a situation that frightened her. I was in a position in which I could assist her and I was far more than willing to protect her but she held fast to the idea that she wouldn’t put me in danger, though little danger I’d truly be in. She kept secret from me any information I might need to keep her safe and insisted, if it came to, she would deliver herself into chaos, allowing me and many others to walk away unscathed. Every time she said this I was struck dumb by terror.
I could not lose her; not now. She was the only thing I had that was even close to worth having. She was my best friend, if nothing more and I needed her. She was the sun in this new world and if she left, I’d be left cowering, alone, in darkness yet again. I could not think of her dying, I wouldn’t even admit that, eventually, in hundreds of years, she would have to die; because of her, I frequently contemplated the existence of immortality. This terrifying thought crept constantly into my mind, though I repelled it as best I could; I could not see the world without her in it anymore.
Each tear that fell from her eyes burned like acid on my skin. It was then that I decided to do everything in my power to make her happy. My life, starting that moment, that moment I dedicated it all to her, would be in her hands. I would bend at her will, allow her to pull on my strings for the thrill of it, and my thoughts and reasons would revolve around her. I would form myself to anything she could ever need and I would always do my best for her. She would never be unhappy in any way I could help, because she had me. I was forever hers. I would keep myself safe so that I might be able to keep her the same.
She could live all her life falling for other people and I would spend all of mine getting my revenge on them when they hurt her; she may never feel for me as I feel for her but she had changed my life, and that is what truly matters. I am her protector, her guardian angel, and that will never be enough.
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What could never be enough for me would, for now, have to suffice. I would wait, as patiently as possible, until she decided it was time for me to have my chance and I would always be content in the hope for my fair try. Hope was enough to keep me going and she was enough to make me hope.

She walked into my chaotic disaster of a life and, in her presence, it erupted in joy. Now, there was no going back.

Her frequent fits of misery aside, my time spent with her, even the time spent alone – always thinking about her- were as close to perfect as life on earth can get. She understood me the way no one ever had; and the way no one else ever would. She laughed at my jokes and possessed a unique humor of her own. She listened to my problems, beheld my pain and usually had a good idea of how to solve and conquer them. She, in her own way, protected me as I protected her; she was my angel as well.

We had much in common, other than our adoration and addiction to the protection of the other. We both preferred to be secluded from most of the human population; allowing ourselves only a few select friends. We both were very intellectual; our thoughts marred with the almost constant misery of our pasts. She thought in a way that was difficult to understand but I tried my hardest; she read me like a book. She knew what I was feeling from the sound of my voice but she jumped to conclusions so quickly that she frequently misunderstood my mood, my words, and my intentions but, while fighting with her, she still amazed me. She could shoot down every argument and, though it was annoying when I was trying to make an important point, I enjoyed it all the while. I wanted to know everything about her. She intrigued me.

Not everything we had in common was a good thing though. We both pushed other away so, with both of us pulling back, it was rather difficult to move forward. We both kept secrets and neither of us was quick to trust; this also slowed our relationships progress. While she read me like a book, she was not alone in that talent; I also could easily tell what a person felt by how they acted and, like her, I was known to jump to conclusions and frequently misunderstood her. Finally, and most importantly, we both had a nuclear, explosive temper and a thick streak of pride. It would be this that led to our demise.

That day, the last day, we fought. It was unimportant; a futile disagreement over something so small that, blinded and confused so terribly by the fear, pain, and regret of the experience, I don’t remember what sparked the irrevocable and deadly flame. She said something and I assumed she meant something else. I became angry and, ignoring her pleas and excuses, held tightly to my anger. She became enraged at my persistence and, this time, it was taken too far.

She stormed away from me, out of her house; to ‘clear her head’ she’d said. She left me there to fume and she never came back.

This was the last time I’d see her beautiful, absolutely gorgeous, stunningly perfect face; at least that last time I’d see it the way I saw it before. The next time I saw it, it was empty – her eyes lacking the intensity I usually beheld there –; it was frightening – stopping my heart and shoving its lifeless mass into my throat, putting a halt to, for the first and last time in my life, my thoughts; the next time I saw her face, it was dead.

Thirteen days after her walk, thirteen days after her disappearance, they found her body and that was the end; the end of my hope and the end of my life the only way I’d ever want it. She had become imperative to my existence; vitally important to my very being and she had been taken away from me.

The night she’d disappeared I had left her house, after searching with her family and friends for hours on end, anywhere and everywhere she’d ever think about going when angry. When I’d left, I had been under the impression she was hiding, waiting for my absence, or had run away; I’d been under the vague impression she would eventually return and, when she didn’t, I was nothing less than distraught; and that is a pathetic understatement.

The days before she was found were the most wretched hell-on-earth days any person had ever experienced on this planet in all its time. I did all I could to help the investigation - recounting all the details of the argument and what of her personality I thought would help – but other than that I was useless. I sat, moping, in my room staring at the walls and noticing just how dull they were compared to her and I would have given anything, no everything, to be gazing at her instead. Food had lost its taste, temperature its feel; everything was nothing without her and I was stuck here. Until she returned to me, I knew, nothing would improve. My family attempted to force me to return to school but the empty lifelessness that had engulfed me frightened them so badly that it didn’t take long for them to give up and stop trying; just as I had. I can’t honestly say I was living these thirteen days because I wasn’t; I simply existed. My thoughts didn’t form into actual thoughts, mere reflections of pain, misery, and torture. I was inhuman.

I was worse off then than I was before I had met her but not once did I regret doing so. Meeting her was the best thing that had ever happened to me; losing her, by far, the worst.

The moment I’d heard that they’d found her had been astronomically worse than the time she’d been away. I no longer had the hope that had kept my heart beating for the longest thirteen days of all time. I now knew, for a fact, that she was never coming to back to save me from myself, to save my from another, or to save me from the evil that I knew would continue to devour me until my soul departed from this earth. I would never again struggle through nights dissecting her every word, move, and motive. I would never again hold myself back, to keep from brushing her hair out of her face to better see her eyes, for she was badly frightened by movement that close her head. I would never again enjoy the constant falling I’d become so accustomed to. It was over; she was gone; and I had nothing.

The breath scorched its way down my throat, burning and setting fire to my lungs; my hearts beats punctured holes in my chest; the blood flowing through my veins singed my flesh like acid; just being alive without her caused me mass amounts of pain.
I hadn’t cried the night I’d found out, like the knowledge had stopped my emotions in their tracks; the doctors called it ‘shock’ but I didn’t care. I merely existed in the loneliness that was consuming me and I missed her. I missed her more than a man who is at the edge of death after having been stranded in the desert for weeks missed water. I missed her touch – my system deprived of the electric shock that nothing could mimic; I missed her eyes and the stories they told; I missed her voice, music to my ears, always telling me what I wanted to hear; but most of all, I missed knowing that, while I was missing her, she was missing me. And never again would that be.

My life never got better after she left me forever. I hadn’t expected it too but my family and friends became more worried as time passed by and I only grew more miserable; like each tick of the clock flung out another ton of pain to weigh itself upon my heart and, with each passing second, it became harder; harder to think, harder to breath, harder to survive. I was nothing without her and I knew I never would be. She’d been my world and now I succumbed to the pressing darkness; allowing the suffocation of desperation and depression to overcome. I’d never gotten my chance, my fair try; I had let her walk away because of my pride and, when she’d left, so had my will to live. It was over; it was done; all was lost.

I joined her not long after; my fathers gun one bullet short.