Please Don't Forgive Me

He sat next to me, on my bed, silently with his head in his hands. He didn’t know what to say, that much was obvious, and he didn’t know what to do. He thought he had royally fucked up, but he hadn’t. He had done nothing wrong and he couldn’t accept that. I slowly opened my mouth to speak, the first words I would vocalize in a while. “Garrett,” I whispered—my voice hoarse, “it isn’t your fault.”

“Yes it is,” he answered after sighing loudly, looking up at me with his deep blue eyes. “It is my fault.”

“How the hell is it your fault?” I yelled—or at least that’s what it sounded like. He looked up in shock, as if my voice had shattered glass or had never been heard before.

“I should have been here. You needed me more than ever and I wasn’t here for you. I was out on the east coast in New York and you needed me here.”

“You don’t know that being here would have made things turn out any differently.” I grabbed my best friend’s hand and squeezed it. He looked down and began rubbing circles into my palm with his thumb. “It still could have turned out exactly the same.”

“If I was here though,” he shook his head angrily. “Had I been here I would have been with you. If I was with you, it wouldn’t have happened.” He looked back up at me and his eyes locked with mine. “If I was here I would have protected you.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” I sighed. He was taking this whole thing about a thousand-and-one times worse than I was. My side bangs fell into my face from behind my ear.

“Yes I do,” he said reaching over to push the sometimes-more-auburn-sometimes-more-brown hair out of my eyes. “He wouldn’t have gotten to you if I was here. He wouldn’t have been able to.” He sighed again, “He wouldn’t have been able to find you alone.”

“Garrett, it isn’t your fault and even if it was, I’d forgive you.”

“Please, Anika, please do not forgive me this time.”