The Last Rescue Was Myself

William held tulips while he waited outside the café.Liz, his girlfriend, used to say that light pink was reminiscent of clean pages and peaceful mornings. He checked his phone while standing beneath the awning, then again as if the screen had malfunctioned and he had missed her message.

Nothing.

The weight of the spring rain caused the tulips to slowly droop.

“She failed to appear?” Later, when he leaned back on the couch with his phone against his face, James, his friend, asked, his voice filled with quiet concern.

"She has been depressed lately," William remarked. "She most likely forgot."

"Or didn't want to come."

William said, almost defensively, "Same thing."

A pause occurred. James then answered, "I understand. However, remember to take care of yourself as well."

In the storefront across from the bus stop, there was a jacket. It has double-stitched seams and soft brown leather. Kenyan Shillings twenty thousand. He had tried it on once and had been eyeing it for weeks. It fits perfectly. He promised himself that he would get it if it was still available this week.

It remained.

The message was the same.

Liz: "Sorry, strange question. My 4k is insufficient for something. Do you think you could assist? I'll give it back on Friday.

No specifics. It didn't matter, though. No matter how long it took, she always reimbursed him. She came from a wealthy family, but recently she disliked asking for anything from them.

He said, "Want me to send 20?"

"I can get by with four," she answered.

He sent sixteen.

“How much did you give her?” Maria’s tone was piercing, her eyes sharp with concern. She was his sister, and this was the kind of question only someone who truly cared would ask, even if it hurt.

"She required it."

"You required a jacket."

He gave a shrug. "It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it is. You were thrilled about it. Will, you always give up something when she's feeling down.”

He remarked, "She's not requesting anything." "I'd like to assist."

Maria let out a sigh. "I am certain that you do. However, don't bleed for those who don't ask you to."

“She’s not asking for anything,” he said. “I want to help.”

"That's what frightens me."

Liz would occasionally make arrangements only to change them hours later. Sometimes there is silence, and other times there is a brief apology. William never voiced any complaints. He would return the following day. with flowers. or soup. Or a book he believed could be useful.

She was in her jammies, her hair matted, when she answered the door one night.

With wide eyes, she said, "Will." "You came again, really?"

"You didn't send a text." Will answered.

"I believed I had. Apologies. I've been having strange thoughts recently.

He handed the flowers to her. After giving them a confused glance, she drew him into a silent embrace.

"You’re too good to me," she said. "I'm not worthy of it."

He embraced her more tightly and whispered, "You do."

"You simply have not yet seen it."

Later, he sat with her while she curled up on the floor. She refrained from crying. With a heaviness in her voice, she simply gazed at the ceiling.

She remarked, "I don't think I'm built for this life."

"You're simply tired."

"I'm always tired."

He reached over, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

"You remain here. That is significant."

She gave him a look. "What if I'm not one day?"

"Avoid saying that," he whispered. "I hope you never think that way again."

Then there was silence.

She had claimed to be feeling under the weather, perhaps from fatigue or the illness. She needed to sleep. He didn't hear anything else after that. The following day, her phone ceased to ring. No responses. Not a single update. Her whereabouts were unkown. She had not been seen by her friends.

He kept sending messages.

He held flowers in one hand as he stood at her gate that afternoon.

After sunset, Maria discovered him there.

"She hasn't gotten back to you?"

He shook his head.

He said, "She's probably sleeping." Or turned her phone off. Sometimes she does that.

Embarrassingly, Maria nodded. "Want me to join you in waiting?"

He simply watched the gate as if it would open without responding.

"She will be alright," he answered quietly. "She must be."

Liz was gone.

Silence, no message, no warning. She didn't have her phone on. Her relatives refused to talk to him. Not even her best pals knew where she was. It was like losing his sense of gravity for William. She was his reason one day. Then she disappeared.

She simply needed time, he told himself, trying to remain logical. The panic, however, was louder. He went back to their favorite places, including the bookstore where they used to spend their peaceful afternoons and the café where she had ordered chamomile tea. Nothing. He left pages of partially written texts, voicemails, and messages. Nothing came back.

He went to her home. Her mother, calm but not icy or harsh, opened the door.

She said, "She's not here." She's not feeling good. She required some time off."

"Where?" he inquired.

"She didn't say."

The door shut after that. William gazed at it without emotion. He was still on the outside despite all of his hard work and devotion.

He ought to have stopped. However, he was unable to. He started keeping an obsessive journal, gathering bits and pieces, and following rumors. Someone at a secondhand bookshop recalled Liz saying she needed to vanish because she felt "unreal." She discussed leaving the country, according to another. It was all illogical. It wasn’t the Liz he knew. Or maybe, he thought, he never really knew her at all.

James and Maria became worried.

"But what if she doesn't want to be found?" James asked him directly.

William lost his temper. "NO, you are wrong!"

Maria was kinder, requesting that he eat and relax. He dismissed her. "I wouldn't stop looking either if this were you."

However, things began to fall apart. When he read old messages again, he began to notice distance notes, which he had not noticed the first time. Had she always been saying farewell?

Nevertheless, he persisted, searching for a hint of her—finding her former therapist, following internet breadcrumbs, disregarding his job, ignoring everything. He continued to spiral while lying to Maria and James about needing space.

Then he caught sight of her.

It wasn’t planned. He was at a bookstore, picking something up for Maria’s birthday. And there she was — by the fiction shelves, holding a paperback, laughing at something the cashier said. She looked… fine.

When she saw him, she froze for just a moment.

“Oh. Hey. Didn’t think I’d see you here.”

“Yeah. Just… shopping,” he managed. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” she said. “Been getting out more. Seeing friends. Staying busy.”

A pause. “Sorry I didn’t say anything.”

That was it. No explanation. No apology. No trace of the girl who used to cry in his arms. Just a casual distance. She didn’t need saving. She never wanted him to follow.

He left the bookstore hollowed out.

Later that night, Maria found him in the kitchen, staring at the wall, untouched dinner in front of him.

“She’s not going to choose you, Will,” she said softly. “Not in the way you keep choosing her.”

He didn’t speak.

“It’s not love if it only works when you’re bleeding.”

He closed his eyes. For the first time, he didn’t argue. “I think I don’t want to get hurt anymore.”

For a while, he tried. He joined Maria for a yoga class, even though he hated every stretch. He started walking without checking his phone. He read again. He smiled — genuinely, briefly — at a child playing in the park.

He was still in pain, but the silence had changed. It wasn’t just absence anymore. It was an empty room.

Then Liz texted.

“Saw something that reminded me of you. Hope you’re okay.”

His heart leapt. Fingers hovered over the keyboard.

Don’t do it, the truth whispered. She didn’t reach out when it mattered.

But he answered anyway.

“Hope you’re okay too.”

Sometimes he replied. Sometimes he didn’t. But it always hurts. He was a man trying to quit poison while keeping it in the cupboard.

Eventually, she asked to meet for coffee. He went — hopeful, cautious.

She talked about work, friends, and a new guy she’d met. Not romantically, just in passing — but it still stung.

“You really helped me,” she said, smiling softly. “I wouldn’t have gotten through things without you.”

He nodded. “Of course.”

And walked away feeling like maybe this was closure. A quiet ending.

But that night, when she didn’t respond to his check-in message, it all crashed again.

He sat on the floor of his bedroom, back against the bed, the air thick with unsaid things.

“She didn’t choose me,” he whispered into the dark. “She never did.”

But he was starting to realize… maybe that wasn’t the tragedy. Maybe the tragedy was that he never chose himself either.

And that, finally, was beginning to change.

The night air was cool, and the city buzzed around William like static.

He wasn’t looking for her—just walking to clear his head, hands deep in his pockets. The streetlights pooled soft yellow over the pavement.

Then he heard her laugh.

Familiar. Sharp.

He turned before he could stop himself.

Across the street, near a quiet café, Liz stood beneath the lamplight. She was holding someone’s hand.

A guy—taller than him, lean. She smiled at him like she used to smile at Will: warm, private, like it meant something.

Then the guy kissed her. She kissed him back.

William froze.

And then, the jacket.

The man shifted in the light. Soft brown leather, double-stitched seams. The one Will almost bought—before Liz asked for a little help, said she was short 4,000.

She’d bought him the jacket. The one Will gave up for her.

Her smile. The kiss. The jacket.

It was all right there.

Liz turned and saw him. She didn’t look shocked. Just still.

She didn’t wave.

He didn’t cross the street.

They looked at each other. Then she turned and walked away with the man.

William didn’t remember the walk home. Later, sitting alone in the dark, the words came:

“I was never the one. Just the landing place. The one who caught her until she was ready to fly again.”

“I was trying to rescue someone who never asked to be saved.”

He withdrew. No anger. No crying. Just silence. He avoided James, Maria, the café, everything that still echoed with her name.

One night, James found him.

“You look like you’re half in the grave.”

“I’m tired.”

“Of her?”

Will didn’t answer.

“You gave everything. She gave nothing. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“That I was nothing to her?”

“No,” James said. “That you gave too much to someone who never asked for it—and they gave nothing back.”

Something in William shifted.

Maria found him one morning, holding a wilted bouquet he never delivered.

“Still thinking about her?”

“Not really,” he said. “I’m thinking about why I thought doing everything right and more without anything in return was love.”

Maria sat beside him.

“Because you lost someone once. And maybe you thought if you did it perfectly this time, maybe it’d end differently.”

“She’s not the same.”

“No. But you are.”

He looked at the flowers. Then got up and threw them away.

A week later, Liz texted him:

Can we talk?

He stared at the screen.

Then he stepped outside. Took a deep breath. Deleted the message.

He went to a café he liked—one she never wanted to visit. Ordered his favorite drink. Opened a book.

He wasn’t waiting anymore.

Weeks later, William laughed with Maria and James under a soft sunset. The shadows under his eyes hadn’t vanished—but they’d softened.

He passed a clothing store. Paused. Smiled faintly.

He had some savings now.

He bought a new jacket—not the one he’d wanted. A different color. A different cut.

One that was completely his.

“I used to think love meant going above and beyond — even when it hurt. That if I gave everything I had, I would be worthy. But love isn’t about proving yourself. It’s not about fixing someone, or carrying all the weight alone.

It’s quieter than that. Kinder. Mutual.

I kept trying to rescue someone else.

Turns out, the last rescue was myself.”

He walked into the sunlight with a smile — like someone finally free.