away.

present.

Misery. Anguish. Devouring regret.

No matter how much I attempted to express all the horrendous emotions washing all over me, draining me gradually of any desire to linger in the senselessness that was left, I was incapable of putting my anguish into words. Next to the absurbity of the fact that I was still here, alive and breathing in the tension of the stiff air, a thousand questions had been raised, but would presumably remain unsettled.

Why did the Schulz brothers deserve to remain uncorrupt by this world's injustice, and Louise didn't?

Why did the universe cast all of our disastrous karma not on our wrong souls, but on her lily white being?

Why Louise?

My gaze couldn't lift off the ground, examining the variety of feet and personalities passing by. Not stopping to ask me whether I was handling it all well, whether I wished to say a few kind words about our dear friend, sister, daughter, niece, colleague, etc.

To me, she had been something else, something inbetween.

My absorbing guilt was pressing down on the back of my neck, crushing my shoulders with its tremendous weight. Vines were tight around the remains of my heart, its thorns cutting deep into my gaunt flesh. And it was all uncomparable to the agony of Caleb Schulz.

A few steps towards his crouching figure, and I could finally tell him the only word that said it all. A hand on his sunken shoulders, a tiny bit of brothersome exchange only through puffy gloomy eyes, and Caleb knew. The sandy blonde errant curls falling on his forehead were soaked in sorrow, and those amber almonds had long lost their playful sparkle, replenished by a drapery no one could see through. His fingers entangled in those curls, my younger brother stood in place, as if he was never intending ot standing up. His lips parted, voice was soft and bleak, twisting my heart around a thousand times.

"I just wish we had never met her, Calvin."

-

six months ago.

Dark, sinister, infernal. But most importantly, undeniably stunning.

How her smoothly flowing raven waterfall complimented her golden glow, yes, not bronze, golden, because this masterpiece deserved no less.

How her hips swayed to her own rhythm that you couldn't consciously hear, but your heartbeat picked up on it as it started racing with her presence.

How her voluptuous plump tulle lips were devised to lure you in, to make you beg them to walk wild on your skin.

How her intimidating, brimming in passion emerald eyes traveled over you shamelessly and spoke the unspoken.

How her perfect tiny waist was wrapped in Caleb's arm, holding her tight as if he let go of her, she would drift away and be lost for eternity.

This was the kind of woman that would break us both, and I knew it right there and then, while her eyelashes fluttered at me and promised tempestuous nights and remorseful mornings.

Lousie was my forbidden fruit, but constraints won't make me remain true.

Only if I knew that everything dies when it's broken in two.

-

present.

It tore me to shreds to witness Caleb's broken parts scatter over the ground, along with him spitting out some of them through his despondant tone. I had been praying for him to cause an outrage, to detest me, to throw the memory of his betraying brother into a pit and never return to demand anything from him ever again.

Instead, the pain had captivated him in the devilish trap of self-pity and neverending depression, which prevented the so deeply desired disgust towards the monster.

I longed to plead for his forgiveness, to grant me a second chance at being a decent friend at the least, to believe in me, to trust me like he did before.

My whispers of heartache and apologies were about to roll over my tongue, but I was cut off my a shaking head and a cracking undertone.

"It is a life lesson that has to be learned sometime, you know,"

My suspicious baffled stare must have given out how lost did I feel with this assumption.

"To me, she was an open book from the start, her melodious laugh and angel-face never disguised what really made us lose our minds over her. But it is our mistake that our hands met, reaching for the same book."

Suddenly, his true meaning behind all of this muttering came to me and I was left speechless.

Because when two hands meet, the book gets pushed off the shelf.

and it slips away.