What's It Like to Die Alone?

“You love me?” I whispered.
“Yes.” he gulped.
“Do you know it?”
“I-I’m not sure, but I th-think so, yes.” he stuttered, becoming sweaty.
“Oh.”
“You’re going to leave me now, huh?”
Heroin looked down at the floor.
“I want to say it back, but-”
“But you don’t feel it back. Fuck, I’m such an idiot, this always happens!”
“No, no, that’s not it. It’s more like I don’t know who to say it to. I don’t know your name.”
“Do you really need my name to say it?”
I nodded.
“What if you love ‘Heroin’ but you don’t love me?”
“I’m pretty sure I’ll feel the same about the both of you, you’re the same person.”
“I’m Heroin for now.”
“But you’re not! Why won’t you tell me your name?”
“You… you just wouldn’t understand!”
A nurse walked past us, Nurse Kim.
“Nurse Kim, what is he called?”
“He didn’t tell us his name, we all know him as B.” she shrugged.
“What about your records? Nothing?”
She shook her head and continued walking.
I let go of Heroin and hit the walls. “Why the fuck won’t you tell me? What are you so afraid of?”
“I’m afraid you’ll leave me, you’ll hate me. But I need you in my life, I can’t function without you and I… even if I get you to promise not to change how you see me, you still will. Please.” he sobbed.
“Don’t fucking cry! It’s just a name!”
“It’s not just a name! Ugh, why did I have to tell you I love you Freya?”
“Because you were confused.”
“I’m not confused.” he spat. “This is how I feel about you and I’m sorry if I disgust you.”
“You don’t disgust me and you shouldn’t apologize.”
“Why is my name so important to you?”
“Because I don’t really know who you are. I don’t know if I’ve fallen in love with the real person, or this façade that is ‘Heroin’. Do you act the same?”
“Yes.” he nodded. “We’re exactly the same person, minus the name.”
I tilted my head back and sighed. “I love you, Freya.”
“I know.” I sighed again. “I know.”
My eyes glazed over. “Oh my God… you’ve said that to me before, haven’t you?”
I looked up and he covered his mouth with his hands. “You can’t have guessed it, you can’t have…”
“Jacob?”
“No!” he shouted. “No, no! I am not fucking Jacob! Ugh!”
“But you know of him?”
“I haven’t spoken to him in years, but yeah, you could say that.”
“Tell me.” I said, my eyes beginning to well up. “Please.”
“Oh, babe, don’t cry, please.” he begged.
“You can’t even trust your own girlfriend to know your name, do you know how awful that makes me feel?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t, and-”
A tear fell down my cheek. “You can’t trust me.”
“No, it’s not like that, please.”
A few more tears fell and I wiped my eyes. “Just leave me alone.”
“Freya, I love you.” he begged, now crying himself. “Please.”
“If you can’t trust me, then what’s the point?"
“No, I can trust you, I just can’t trust myself-”
I turned on my heels and started walking back to my room. Several people stared at me but I didn’t care.
“Freya!” he called and ran after me. I tried to get rid of my tears. “You’ve got to understand, you understand everything else, what changed?”
“What changed? What CHANGED? You, whatever the fuck your called! You did! You can’t trust me and I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t give a damn about how bad they make me feel!”
“I do, baby, I-”
“Are you going to tell me your name?”
He bit his lip and shook his head.
“Then consider yourself single.” I spat and slammed the door shut.
Why is it so important to him to hide from me? What had I done to him to make him this upset?
I sank to the floor and cried into my knees for what seemed like hours. In reality, well, in reality it was hours. I had been crying for that damn long.
“William!” a voice shouted through the door. “I’m called William!”
I slowly opened the door to reveal him standing there, crying and crying. I wiped my sore eyes gently.
“William?”
He nodded.
“As in, Beckett?”
“Y-yeah.” he sniffed and wiped his eyes. “You hate me now.”
“No.” I paused. “I love you, William Beckett.”