Still

Each breath was theft — just enough oxygen to survive.

Unfamiliar sounds collided with his heartbeat, crashing through the deep baritone mantra that once steadied him. Now his heart carried only soreness, raw as an undershirt worn too close to the skin. There was no pride in it. No way to shed it.

He was trapped inside a tragedy that offered no return. His soul had fallen quiet, haunted by the heart’s frantic distress signals, sinking deeper into itself in search of a hope that refused to answer.

Where did she go?

That single question consumed him the moment he learned of her passing. The ambulance had not been fast enough, perhaps. The paramedics had not done enough, maybe. All he knew with certainty was the suffocating grip of abandonment and the slow regret that weathered his bones until only fragile scraps of willpower remained — torn napkins scattered in a storm.

What if he could have saved her?

His unprotected heart still bore the scars of a violent predator.

“What did I do to deserve this?” he wondered in the ruins of his new life. It felt foreign. Wrong. He ached for the connection they once shared.

“Without you, I am nothing,” he had whispered into the pale glow of the nightlight on so many endless nights. That same soft light once caught in her dark eyes, offering him serenity even when the world grew uncertain.

“Love covers a multitude of sins,” she had answered gently, her hands trembling with uncertainty.

Perhaps she had been bargaining for his freedom from shadows she sensed, but he could not yet see.

“She seemed to wonder if something more was happening inside my head,” he later told a confidant. “But there was nothing more than her face — a banner drawn across my eyes and ears. She was everything that mattered. I would have died for her.”

He froze then, face mirroring the paralysis in his mind. His friend stood tall and stoic as a warrior, offering no words — only quiet company, the first fragile thread of healing. The wound would never fully close. It would simply change shape with him, growing into something more than its painful birth.

An accident of nothing, except memories sharpened into perfect weapons of destruction.

•••

Today he sat alone in his room, craving stillness. Instead, tears came.

“There is someone here for you.”

The familiar voice returned, lifting slightly in that same comforting tone.

He pulled away from the scene his mind kept forcing him to watch. Turning like an owl, wide-eyed and unblinking, he scanned the empty space from his bowed position, knees drawn near his face. No one stood there.

Only fragmented sunlight touched the carpet in a single golden line. Everything beyond it slipped into shadow. Yet it was always the light that held him — the slender hope that separation might one day shrink.

“I miss you,” he breathed. “I miss you more than I ever thought possible.”

The bowl she once bought — bright with layered flowers and whimsical foliage — waited in the garage. She had meant to resell it. Today, a buyer had finally appeared.

“I believe it is still here,” he muttered, voice small and muddled in the thickened air.

The idea arrived too easily: retrieve the bowl, unwrap it with care, prepare it perfectly. Then, when his body reacted as it once had, perhaps this time he would simply slip away. It would look like an accident born of grief. They would say he wasn’t thinking clearly. Or that he no longer wanted to think at all.

He contacted the buyer, then moved through the house like a machine.

Stepping into the garage brought a strange mixture of relief and pity — pity for the man he had become. He stepped over a fallen mop, pushed aside boxes with torn flaps, and found the bowl exactly where it had been hidden, cornered and alone beneath two heavy moving blankets.

“You’re still here,” he whispered, addressing it like an old adversary.

As he lifted the blankets, something shifted inside him — not the usual anchor of guilt, but a faint, trembling resolve. His shoulders shook. A half-joking, half-encouraging voice rose from somewhere deep: Fight for once.

He stubbed his toe hard against an old wooden carving he had made years ago — the first thing his hands had ever shaped. Touché, old self, he thought, rubbing the sharp pain. For a moment his soul seemed to push back against surrender.

He carried the bowl into the kitchen. A wooden knife block held only three knives and a pair of scissors. He chose the largest chopping knife and made short, smooth cuts through sandwich bread, cheese, and meat, creating the spirals she had taught him early in their dating days. He ate slowly, savoring the memory.

He prepared the package with care — scissors, manila folder, bubble wrap, tape, stamps. He tore open a bag of potato chips, rinsed the salt from his lips with whiskey poured into their anniversary crystal glass. The wet crystal sang beneath his fingertip as he circled the rim.

Then time slowed. A single drop of whiskey fell. He moved faster than it could land on his clothes. It hit the tile instead.

“Weird,” he muttered.

He slipped on work gloves from the drawer she had labeled “miscellaneous” and began wrapping the bowl. Suddenly he froze.

“What am I doing?”

His legs began to shake uncontrollably. He tore the gloves off and reached into the folder.

“I’m ready!” he spit his words through gritted teeth.

The moment his fingers touched the bowl, a great force slammed through him. His soul was pressed hard against the back of his body. Suddenly he was looking out through his own eyes from behind them. A gentle, velvet warmth enveloped him — peace without guilt, without fear.

Then her voice came, flowing through his own.

She took the bowl, wrapped it with care, sealed the box, and addressed it with steady hands. “I love you,” she said, full of light and life.

For a moment he floated, lifted into something beautiful. How beautiful she is.

But the vision turned dark.

Even as he observed from within, he felt her leave.

The paramedics came too late. The bathroom door was locked. Her final whispered prayer for forgiveness hung in the air.

When the vision released him, he stood at the counter, back in his own body. The package sat finished before him. Beneath it lay her letter:

“I would have chosen to stay and let my mistakes make me stronger, if only I’d known. I didn’t believe you could love me that much. We will meet again — just not yet, I pray.”

Your Love. P.S. “If you choose to give your life up, it will be my fault.”

He didn’t know how to feel. The postscript was enough to keep him here.

He gathered the package and carried it to the car. He sat in the driver’s seat until daylight came, staring at the front door, listening to the steady rhythm inside his chest — the deep baritone mantra of his heart, beating for her once more.