The Intern

Chapter 57

"I don't know what to do."

I whispered the words into the empty silence and barely managed to hear them at all. Although I wasn't sure whether or not they could even count as words. Not when they were nothing more than broken sounds twisting out of my throat in a gurgled mess that wouldn't have made sense to anyone. If there had been anyone around to hear them. But as it was, I was almost alone in the room. With no one but my unconscious friend, who wouldn't be able to hear me even if I did make sense.

So in the end it didn't really matter what I sounded like.

It didn't change a thing.

But I had gotten used to that by now. I was at the point where I was positive that nothing was ever going to change.

No matter how much I wanted it to.

And I did. So strongly that I could feel it down in my bones. Because I didn't want this life anymore. Not as it was now. Not after what it had become. Not when I felt as if I were trapped in a hell that I would never be able to claw my way out of. Forced to watch my friend waste away in a bed as the love of my life walked out of the door. All the while convincing myself that it was entirely my fault.

Even if I knew that wasn't true.

Although it was hard to see it any other way when I knew that the lie had started it all. Even though it hadn't been something I wanted to keep, it was my choice to do so in the end. I'd lied to him, despite every chance I had to come clean, and if it weren't for that I knew I wouldn't be here now. In this small little room, where everything seemed to go wrong. I wouldn't have to endure any of it. Because they never would have kissed. Armin never would have seen it. And I would still have my best friend and my life.

If it weren't for that fucking lie.

And maybe that was why it was so hard to let him go in the end. I couldn't bring myself to blame him for all of it, even though I knew this would be easier if I could. Because it would take the blood off my hands and give me a reason to turn away from him. One that wouldn't leave me as guilt-ridden as he was. But that would be a lie, wouldn't it? None of us were blameless here.

I had lied and pushed him away. He had been stubborn and unforgiving. Erwin had been the manipulative bag of crap we all knew so well. And Armin, for the first time in his life, hadn't bothered to think things through.

So here we were.

Trapped in a fate where none of us were happy. In a hell where we had all successfully lost the thing we wanted most. In a place where I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, brilliant and perfect, but too far and unrealistic to reach. And I couldn't bring myself to try. I was stubbornly dragging us down, deeper and deeper into this black-hearted pit, because I refused to forgive him for something he never meant to do.

And I hated myself for it.

I wanted to forgive him.

I wanted to run after him right now and return to the life we had lived just days before.

But nothing was ever that simple. And I was quickly beginning to realize that it never would be.

I slipped out of the bathroom and shut the door behind me, leaning back against it and gripping the handle as if it could keep me from falling to the ground. I wasn't sure I could trust my legs to hold me up anymore after they'd failed me so many times now. And I'd already promised myself that, if nothing else, I was going to stand. Because at this point it felt like the only form of control I had left.

Although that also started to fade away the second my eyes fell on the key resting against Armin's chest.

The one Levi had left for me.