Secondhand Guilt

Monday July 17th

2:47am

It happened again, I saw her. Except this time, she wasn’t running away. We were at the type of café that had drinks only regulars knew how to pronounce. I had no business being there but I was anyway. It was because of her. She sat across from me at that all too familiar round table reading the same damn book. The one that now rests at the top of our–my bookshelf, yearning to be opened again. I couldn’t stop staring. Her long brown curls rested along her back and her eyebrows scrunched together as she read, adding a hint of seriousness in her hazel eyes. This was before we met. When she was just ‘the girl from the coffee shop’ and I was just ‘the guy that always stared’. It was so easy back then, when we didn’t know each other. Probably would’ve made things easier now. If we had never met, I would never have known what it's like to get my heart ripped out from my chest. Then there were screams. I turned around for a split second but by the time I looked back, she was gone. The screaming wouldn’t stop.

“No! Dear god, no! Don’t do this!”

As my eyes searched for the source of the desperate cries, I found myself in a basement. She was sitting on the concrete floor curled up in a corner, staring at me. Her eyebrows were still scrunched together but now for a different reason. I stood in front of her about six feet away. Her face was smeared with black streaks coming from her eyes. They closed as I looked at her.

“If you’re going to kill me, just do it. Please.”

It hurt to see her like that, weak and helpless. There was nothing I could do about it. It was all my fault. My eyes trailed down to a pair of hands which held a gun, slowly moving up in her direction. It took everything in me to try and stop it but my thoughts had no effect on the actions taking place. I was helpless, there was nothing that could save her from the pistol aimed at her head.

Her face scrunched even more, as if there was a slight chance this was a nightmare she would wake up from at any given moment. Just as the hands began tightening around the trigger, her eyes snapped open, “this is all your fault.”

I rested the journal on my lap, giving attention to the patient in front of me. “Do you believe it?” 

Despite sitting there and watching me as I read, he jumped at my words. I would lose him from time to time, his mind constantly wandering down other dark paths I haven’t yet helped him erase. 

“Wh–at?” His voice cracked as he spoke.

“Do you believe it, what she said before you woke up.”

He leaned forwards, elbows resting on either knee. A small laugh left his mouth as his head hung low, staring at the floor. “I believe it because it was all my damn fault, I did this to her–”

“But you didn’t do anything. You weren’t there and you didn’t pull the trigger.”

“Exactly, I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING!” His head shot up as he spoke. Tears streamed down his already puffed up face. A vein trailed the top of his forehead as his jaw clenched. We looked at each other for what felt like an hour but in reality only lasted a few seconds. His eyes dropped first, breaking contact. “She needed me. She was in danger and I was at home cooking dinner. She had a gun to her head and I was stuck on what flavour pasta sauce to use. She called me and all I could hear was the radio that was turned up a little too loud.”

“There’s no way you could’ve changed what happened.”

He sunk down into the chair, as if the cushions were to swallow him up in an attempt of escaping reality. “Did you know that she never came home late,”–his hands wrapped themselves around the nape of his neck–”not even once. If she did she would always call but that day, it took me two hours to come to the conclusion that something was off. Two hours. Little did I know for half of that time she’d already been laying lifeless outside of a grocery store. All because of a petty thief that decided it was her time. He didn’t have the right to choose her fate but he did it nonetheless and got away with it. That’s on me.”

I closed the journal and set it on the side table, resting my glasses on top. “How exactly is it ‘on you’ Mr. Andrews? Frankly, that is the only part in all of this I am failing to understand.”

Another wave of silence washed over the room. At first I thought my words left him at a loss of his own but after a small breath, he responded. “If I wasn’t there to help her, that makes me just as bad as the guy that pulled the trigger. Nothing you say will change that.” With that he stood up, grabbing his coat that laid on the armrest. He then proceeded to the side table, grabbing his journal from underneath my glasses. 

“We’ve still got ten more minutes left of this session, Mr. Andrews.”

“Well consider it a tip. I should be on my way now,”–he reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a half empty silver packet–”I won’t be needing these anymore.”

“I’m sorry but I was under the impression that you still had sleeping troubles. Considering your last entry was written at two in morning.”

Mr. Andrews was already walking towards the exit, coat in one hand. He pulled the door with the other before turning back, “Those pills may have helped me fall asleep but they didn’t do anything to keep the nightmares away. Good day, Miller. Don’t expect me anytime soon.”