Love Her

Part 26

I threw my arms around her instinctively, wrapping them around her waist and pressing my face against her forehead.

I kept her face in my hands, communicating silently the love I had for her as tears strolled down her pink cheeks, her face eloquent with despair.

We stood like that for a moment, and it didn't upset me; in fact, I felt comforted by the contact. This didn't feel anything like the last time someone had embraced me this way. This was friendship.

It was strange for me, being this close emotionally, though the physicality to another human being was strange for me too. It wasn't my usual style. I didn't normally relate to people so easily, on such a basic level. When we parted, she took a step back to put more space between us.

"Are you okay?" her voice was light, normal again, and the vague worry in her voice resonated against my ear. Her fingers touched my hair, soft and tentative. I stared at her with my jaw clenched in frustration.

The pity made it final somehow. I didn't comment.

My mind tried to comfort me. It was true. This wasn't that bad. This wasn't the end of the world. This was just the end of what little peace there was left behind. That was all.

Not bad, I agreed, then added, but bad enough. My head started to spin. I couldn't seem to pull in enough oxygen from the air. No lungs.

Her eyes were tortured as she turned to face me.

"Don't be upset with me."

My body reacted faster than my mind was able to catch up with the implications of her reply. I didn't at first understand why the room was spinning or where the hollow roar in my ears was coming from. "Sure," I agreed. "No problem." I sounded like a chain-smoker. I tried to clear my throat, and then winced; the throat-clearing felt like stabbing a knife down there. The inside of my throat burned with every breath I took.

"No. Don't think like that, please. Don't blame yourself, don't think this is your fault. This one is all me. I swear, it's not about you." My mind started to work again. These words weren't the ones I'd been afraid of, and the relief cleared my head. I knew the answer to that one. It said that there was something deeply wrong with me. In my head, everything spun and shifted, rearranging so that things that had meant one thing before, now meant something else. Love didn't work that way, I decided. Once you cared about a person, it was impossible to be logical about them anymore. My head felt disconnected from my body. Panic overwhelmed me, closed my throat.

"You have to understand," she said, her voice slower, more measured now. "It's not you, it's me," she whispered.

"There's a new one." We both cringed, and my eyes were suddenly blind. I blinked feverishly at the tears. She was my best friend. I would always love her, and it seemed it would never, ever be enough to me. My forehead was dewed with sweat and my stomach rolled like I had the stomach flu again. Exactly like I had the flu. My head spun sickeningly.

"I'm okay," I lied.

She looked down at her attire and frowned. My head was spinning - the air was coming too fast and shallow.