Talk Me Down

- Hey.

The sound is poor and there’s nothing but heavy breathing coming from the other side for a moment. She knows he’s smoking, she can listen to the cigarette burning and his long and slow exhale proves her right. She hated this habit of his, but never thought she’d share it. Not before.

- What’s up?

The answer comes, as casual as two friends chatting away. Her feet move from the end of the bed to the middle of it, knees pressed against her chest, and she knows this isn’t going to go her way once again. Darkness fills the room as she doesn’t care to turn on the light and share with the street that the nurse is finally at home after a shift that seemed as endless as all the other ones she’d done the week before.

- I don’t want to be alone tonight, and we haven’t seen each other in a few days. Can you come over?

Said question is made in such a way on purpose; she fears that, given the chance of opting wether he wished to come around or not, the answer would be negatory and there wasn’t any guarantees that she’d be able to deal with rejection at the moment. The imminence of it is present; sure, she could lie and say that this was as normal as any other couple she knew. But they were long past the route to normality and they’re both aware.

- Not tonight. There’s a party downtown and a few important people are going to be there. It could be my chance.

It couldn’t. Not because he didn’t have a drop of talent running through his veins; that was far from the truth, and she’d be the first person to admit this. The rejection would hit him like a brick because he didn’t go to show his art. Alcohol, girls and a few other substances that she’d rather not imagine called for him and they both knew that was the reason why he’d leave her alone once more. His love for the joys of life, even the ones that made your ride through the path shorter, was bigger than his love for her.

That was, if there was any love at all.

- Oh… Of course. I forgot about that. - She didn’t. - Good luck tonight. I hope it goes the way you want it to go.

There are tears in the mixture now, though her voice doesn’t give any of it away. The tone in which she speaks is soothing, almost emotionless, as it always is when she’s getting ready to be hit with the reality that she had clearly chosen the wrong person to love. Oh, if only it were a choice. If only she could turn her feelings to the cute guy at work, the one who brings her lunch when she forgets, when the hours are too long and the end doesn’t seem to come, when her blood sugar is low and she knows she’s about to pass out. If only.

- Thanks. I’ll talk to you tomorrow and we’ll get together, okay?

And it pains her, because they won’t. They won’t talk tomorrow, they won’t get together and he’ll forget all about her. Because that’s how it always goes; he forgets, he lives in another dimension that she longs to share with him, but he doesn’t offer her a ride. He rides, solo, and ventures into the unknown much like Alice in Wonderland, and leaves the poor girl behind. The girl who always tried, who gave him more than any of the girls he buried his sorrows in did. And he lies, because he thinks she doesn’t know.

But she knows. She sees it all, even when it is not seen with her own two eyes, she knows. Yet nothing changes.

- Alright, yeah. Of course.

There’s a moment of pure silence. He has finished his cigarette, certainly, because the sounds she heard before are now gone, except for his quick breath that pours through the phone. He doesn’t finish the call, and she doesn’t either, and there’s a moment where she actually fools herself into believe that he doesn’t hang up because he likes hearing her voice. Because it matters when she calls him at two in the morning to say she misses his presence, his touch. But it’s all a lie.

- Hey Norman?

Perhaps she should’ve hung up. Perhaps it was best to just say her goodbyes, to wish him a goodnight and to forget that she had been stupid enough to call at all. But she doesn’t. She hopes, and when she hopes she tries to reach out to him on a deeper level; to tug at his seems, to show that even though this world is fucked up and this city is long lost in all the shit that people bring along with them, the two of them can make it. They can have one more breath before their final one is set.

- Yeah?

He knows what’s coming, and he wishes it wasn’t. It doesn’t make things easier, or perhaps it does, because he’ll just drown his demons in hard liquor and more. Things never work, and he finds himself wishing he had never bothered her in the first place; they didn’t have to meet if he hadn’t acted on a leap of faith and brought the girl closer, even if just by a small inch. If only he had been more considerate with her feelings then, he could do the same thing now. But he can’t offer her all she wishes; not because he is unable, but because he won’t allow himself to.

- I love you.

Now her voice is shaky. She awaits a reply, a sign that she isn’t riding this train alone.

- Goodnight, Alya.

The call ends, and so does Alya. The sound echoes through the room as soon as it happens and she’s there, lying on the bed again, life slipping through her tiny and tired fingers, her frame still covered with the scrubs she hadn’t had the courage to take off before succumbing to the tiredness that reaches her.
A bullet is craved into her forehead, large drops of blood pouring through its seems as she gives her last breath, not as she wished she would one day, but in the middle of her apartment’s bedroom, with a man standing in front of the bed with a gun in his hand. And there’s nothing else to do, no one else to save her.

He killed her. Not the man with the gun, but the man she loved.