Still Alive.

When I heard you'd taken too much, I wanted to kill the dicks who let you go; who let us go. The doctors who stood by and watched as you slipped in and out of reality, going into shock. They say they tried, but they didn't. If they'd tried, you'd be here next to me, and I wouldn't be doing this.

A cocktail of meds was what had done it. The way you took them, how the way they worked brought it on slow at first, but then exploded. Kind of like fireworks, I suppose. They found cold and flu, paracetamol, cough liquid... some herbal sleeping pills we'd both take from time to time, and high-intensity painkillers.

I curl up on the bed tonight, a bottle of water and the exact same poisons that killed you sitting on the nightstand.

I wrap myself in one of your old shirts. Your second-favorite. They buried you with the one you liked the most. And the Pink Lady too... oh god, how I miss that guitar. It was an extension of you. Of course I miss it.

Tears start falling as I breathe in your scent. Even the smell of your shirts makes me cry. I haven't washed them since you left me. I haven't moved anything. Your clothes are still in the closet, the half-empty and flat bottles of red creaming soda are still in the fridge. I sleep with a hot water bottle up against my back, and two heat packs on my side and stomach. Not because I have back cramps, but because the warmth is something I need. They're not even close to what you felt like, though. Nothing could ever be the same as the feeling of your arms wrapped around me from behind, your breath on my neck and your front pressed into my back. You never minded if I rolled over, but anyone else would.

It takes a lot for me to get to sleep now. I have videos of you, and of us, on my phone. I sit there until the stupidest hours watching them over and over. Nights are just as bad as days, now. I can't live with either of them.

If I could ask you one question, Kristian, do you know what it would be?

“Why?”

We were happy. Perfect, even. We were both the opposite alone, but together we were like nothing I'd ever known. We were like a puzzle made of two jagged-edged pieces. You completed me.

You've been gone a month, Kris. A whole month without my puzzle-piece. A month I've been lying in this bed alone. I haven't gone shopping because I don't want to see all those who still have their lovers by them on the benches. Sammy and Nakki have been coming over all the time; Nakki puts more food in the cupboards and Sammy always comes up and tries to coax me down.

He once asked me what I did if I needed to piss. I told him we had an ensuite, and called him a stupid ass because he should know that as well as anyone. He asked about eating. I told him I went down once a day, if I was in the mood, and made myself one of those toasted things you'd always make me. He said I was wasting away, and I agreed.

That's the most I've spoken to anyone in a month.

We would have been together three whole years today, Kristian. Three whole years. An accomplishment for the both of us.

Staring at a photo of the two of us, I tangle myself up in your clothes even more. The day we took that photo was one of the best days of my life. I remember it so well, ending up at the club with Jonne and Lauri after going shopping the entire day. I remember so clearly the way you crawled up into my lap and Lauri just had to get a photo because we looked so cute.

Kristian, kulta... I was going to propose to you today. I went and bought the ring a week before you died. I wanted it to be special, not just something I asked after a fuck. Jonne was helping me make reservations here, there and everywhere.

Why did I wait?

I pick up the water, popping six paracetamol out of their foil and plastic packet. Four night-time cold and flu, and a medicine cup filled to the top with cough liquid. Three of those herbal sedatives and four of those painkillers, and I'm set.

Tonight, my enkeli, I will be with you.

I start with the cold and flu, and then the paracetamol.

I'm up to the second paracetamol when I think of the events of that night.

I remember Jonne found you, just as you downed the last tablet. No matter how much he tried to con what you'd taken out of you, you didn't relent. So he drove, like a fucking maniac, to the hospital, calling my cellphone on the way to get me to meet you there.

To be honest, I only thought it was something like Lauri had hurt himself again and he'd need me to drive them home because my car was bigger. Fuck, anything is bigger than that two-door hunk of shit.

It was only when I got to the emergency room that I learned any different.

I held your hand until they had to pry me off you, thrashing like a madman, as the heart monitor flat lined. They got out the paddles, and I screamed as they tried to bring you back. Failures.

I collapsed into Jonne's arms, he faltered under my weight and we became a sobbing mess on the disgustingly clean linoleum floor.

I line up the rest of the pills, taking them one at a time until they diminish.

“Here's to you, Kristian. Hyvää yötä kultaseni.”

I down the cough medicine like a shot of vodka, entwine myself in your shirt and wait for you to come and get me.