Requiem

Preface: Choice.

"After everything that we've been through, why are you doing this?" I asked him, unshed tears in my eyes.

He didn't say a word. He just looked at me. I could see umpteen emotions crossing his face. He was an open book for the first time and maybe even the last.

"Answer me," I said, my voice rough and my throat dry. "You don't get to be quiet. You don't get to decide for me. You don't get to ruin my life. You have no right to do that."

"I didn't have a choice." He looked at me helplessly. There were tears in his, and there were tears in mine. But it was all his doing.

"No," I retorted. "You always have a choice and you have made yours."

"I'm sorry," he said in low voice, looking anywhere but me.

"You should be," I hissed, upset and hurt.

Instead of replying, he started murmuring a spell and I could feel it in every cell of my body.

"I'll never forgive you." It was a desperate attempt.

He stopped. "And you never should," he agreed. "I am never going to forgive myself for this."

This time I hugged him tightly. "Please." I could feel his ice-cold skin beneath the fabric of his shirt. He embraced me as well.

"I'm so, so sorry," he stuttered. Then, I felt cold tears on my neck. "I love you, always."

We stood there for a second or maybe for a minute or for an eternity. But even an eternity seemed a very short time now.

Slowly, my body was giving in; I was tired. All I wanted was to wake up from this nightmare but somehow it had become the reality of my life. My eyelids slowly shut close as I fell into the dark abyss of nothingness, with his face encapsulated in my mind for one last time.