Posted:
A short piece based on the current track, it's angsty so don't read it if you don't want to! :)
If...two letters, the minimum amount
needed to classify something as a word, yet a word that carried with it the
weight of the world. Living with what ifs was never easy but being able to
clearly visualize the consequences of every what
if was unbearable to live with. The guilt and regret that came with it
didn't just weigh down your heart, but your whole body. The guilt was like
gasoline running through your arteries and veins rather than blood needing no
more than a spark of that memory to
set your body ablaze. Your insides died of the toxicity slowly, the fire burning so
deep that it left nothing in its wake except the word if.
If I had...
But everyone knows that what is done cannot be
undone. Life doesn't work that way. Sometimes the guilt and regret is so
agonizing, so warranted, that no amount of apologies or reparation would ever
be able to fix things. The only thing that would work would be to go back in
time and change things, but undoing was out of the question. Yet it was the one
thing he wished for every night. If he could just get one more chance, a chance he knew that he didn't deserve but wished
for. He wished that there was something
out there that could fix this, fix
her.
Hours pass. And then days. The guilt and regret
haunts him every time he breathes, time doesn't heal the pain, it cuts just as
deep every time he looks into her eyes, eyes that tear up every time she has to
struggle with something. He feels a fire run through him every time she turns
away from him, but he knows that he deserves it. Yet, he stays because whilst
he knows that he cannot undo his misdeed, he knows that there is nowhere else he would rather be right then, trying his best to ease the pain he's caused.
His pain haunts him, even in his sleep, when
sleep does come. Every time he closes his eyes he sees it all over again,
sometimes just the accident, other times he's standing watching her move
around. In his dreams he tries his hardest to tell her to be careful, but he
never can. Sometimes his words don't come out, other times he's sinking into
quicksand and his feet won't move towards her no matter how hard he tries. The
result is always the same, she's on the road, bleeding - and he wakes up in cold
sweat, his heart pounding and his eyes watery.
He gets up every morning and is right by her side the whole day, but she
seems to not care, she refuses to look at him, to talk to him. And it makes
everything hurt even more but he doesn't say anything because he knows that her
pain is so much greater than his. She's dying on the inside, he knows this,
every time someone else has to do something for her he can see another part of
her breaking and her words keep coming back to him - she thought she was a
burden on her family, that they did too much for her ever since her parents
died. He couldn't even imagine what she was feeling then, this was the woman
that depended on no one, not being able to do things for herself was the
biggest slap to her face, a slap he was responsible for her.
He tried to help her and he knew that she
appreciated the way he helped, he never did anything for her, rather he watched
her try and try again until she was able to do it herself. He wanted to give
her the independence she badly craved, independence that he had snatched away
from her. She knew that he could have stopped this from happening, he had told
her and she understood, but she didn't react. She didn't hit him or cry, she
just nodded, her eyes taking on a vacant expression. But he knew that he had
broken the trust she had in him, this was the girl that trusted him to never
let her fall, and he had all but pushed her in harms' way. Tears had streamed
down his face when he realized it, he was sitting right by her, but she didn't
look towards him despite his sobs.
His only solace was her improvement, she
improved every day, something the doctor was pleased with. Her recurrent brain
scans revealed that the swelling was going down, and with this her eyes seemed
to clear up a bit more, but the progress was equivalent to a drop of water in a
lake. It seemed unfair that no matter what happened, no matter how much he
helped her, no matter what he did - his conscience kept taunting him with his
failure. The improvements in her did nothing to chip away at the regrets that
emerged.
Nothing lightened his heavy heart until weeks later, when she looked at
him with what he would classify as half
a smile, it was the first one directed at him in weeks. She was looking at him
from across the kitchen, where she was sitting instructing Preeta to do things,
while he handled the paperwork and transactions for PCT. It wasn't a full out
smile, but it was progress. At least she was looking at him, and for the first
time in weeks he felt a small smile break out on his face.
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