Diary Entry Pages 10-12
Original: May 1, 2012 - May 19, 2012
Edited: May 20, 2018
I had been off duty when it happened.
I was off duty but I shouldn't have been is what I kept on beating myself up about. Another student had asked me to get her the needed medication for her patient I had agreed, since I had no plans at the time.
I didn't know that would happen.
It had been unexpected. Then again, it always was. Always expect the unexpected. There had been a sudden surgery they had to perform on his leg that began to lose blood at a rapid pace, and he'd been sent immediately to the operating table. I was paged of the incident and had rushed to the hospital immediately. But I was too late.
The doctors were experienced, and they had handled identical surgeries before, but to all survivors, there were victims, and he always did say he would be the one doing the dying.
The thought didn't help at all.
Perhaps he had used up all his lucky stars in the galaxy he'd shared with me. Perhaps those stars had never quite existed. Or maybe they had extinguished long ago, and the light that had reflected in his eyes was merely an after image, for my mind had not yet realised the truth.
The night of his funeral was bright. The moon hung heavy in the sky, full and dipped by the mountains as if in mourning, and it should have. The whole world should have mourned for him. The stars sung his farewell as he was lowered into the ground.
As I saw Jeongin dressed in white I had to bite down on my tongue to refrain from fighting my way to the front and tearing the clothes off of him, because the color just never suited him, but the choice wasn't up to me. I took a solace in the fact that his hair is still blond. I took solace in all that I could, but he had not left much behind for me to hold on to.
The stars were brighter than they ever had been when when we were side by side. When he was by my side. I supposed it was because now that I am on my own, I am not enough to hold an entire galaxy, and the stars had escaped from my clutches. In dreams, I apologized to Jeongin for letting his efforts in catching them go to waste in the end.
☕☕☕
Still, I thought, It's your fault, too.
It helped a little, to be able to push the blame onto him. Even though I knew it wasn't really his fault. Even though I knew it wasn't really anybody's fault.
I saw him in everything. I saw his smile in the glowing sun, and his laugh in the moon. I saw his eyes, with their dangerous, daring glint in the stars and in the shards of light on polished mirrors. I remembered his touch on my skin, the comfort of his hand squeezing tightly around mine, the way I felt so safe. I passed by a florist's and recalled his favorite flowers, and the glare he'd given me when I'd laughed at his choice. I passes a bakery and remembered the time I had baked a cake to celebrate his birthday, and watched his eyes light up, brighter than the flame on the candles, at the gesture. But worst of all, I remembered him in his entirety as I passed what used to be his room. It was not his, anymore. It was empty, and soon it ended up belonging to someone else entirely. But it all felt so wrong. The white walls and the white sheets and the neat white blankets look altogether out of place without him coloring them.
It was almost maddening, how every memory was so vivid. I sat in the empty room at night sometimes and clasp my hands and rest my head onto of them on the bed. And sometimes if I close my eyes tight enough and whisper good nothings into the air, I was able to trick myself into thinking that everything is okay and that he is still by my side. That he is the one holding my hand. Of course, it never worked in the end, and when the mirage shatters, I was left to deal with the empty pain all over again.
I thought, sometimes, that it was awfully unfair that I had to be the one to suffer. But then, maybe now I was the one doing the dying.
☕☕☕
And it had struck me that I had been doomed from the beginning I held the abilitu to keep it professional. I had a loving significant other to go back to at home.
And still he stood there as my body dragged itself to the place where my precious love would never enter.
Felix never said anything. He saw my life crumbling and held till the last piece broke too hard. Shattering to bits that will never even stay with glue.
So he had to let go.
☕☕☕
I sighed, and traced a heart just by the left side of my chest, letting my head fall backwards to hit the wooden wardrobe with a thunk. My heart squeezed tightly, as if someone had pulled a rubber band far back and let it go, snapping around my heart. I clutched at my heart, and closed my eyes, a dry, humorless laugh escaping my throat.
In the end he was right.
He always was.
Heartstrings do exist. They hurt when they snap. And I don't think I had anymore left.
