The End of Us

My feet carried me into the hospital, like someone else was controlling them. They marched through the lobby, onto the elevator, down the hall and only faltered when I walked up to the room.

Someone was already inside. He rose when he saw me. His eyes glittered in the low light. “I’m gonna go get some coffee.”

He slipped by me and disappeared around a corner. My feet moved on their own again and took me to the now empty chair at the bedside. I took in the sight before me, and my heart plummeted through my chest, heavy with guilt. This was my fault.

I sat down, taking the patient’s hand in my own. A machine beeped his slow and steady pulse. A tube went down his throat, filling his empty stomach. They’d pumped it to get out a deadly cocktail of drugs and alcohol. A combination he’d put there himself, because of me.

“You bastard,” I whispered, tears blurring my vision. “Why did you do this to yourself? I’m not worth all this.” I took a shaky breath. “If I was, you never would’ve let me go in the first place.”

The machines kept beeping and whirring, but he said nothing. He couldn’t. He was in a medically induced coma for his own safety. The doctors were worried he’d overdose again.

“We were good together, sure, but we were never gonna last,” I said, tracing circles on the back of his hand with my thumb. “We always had an expiration date. We both knew that.”

I swallowed, fighting back tears. “I just wish we’d known sooner. Then we wouldn’t be here.” My tears overwhelmed me and streamed down my face. Sobs shook my shoulders, and I devolved into a bumbling mess.

When I could breathe again, I said, “But it’s time for you to move on.” I fingered the vial in my pocket. “It’s over, and we can’t go back. We can’t get back together. That’ll only cause us more pain, so I’m letting you go.”

I pulled the vial out of my pocket and looked at it. I couldn’t read the label through my tears, but I didn’t need to. I already knew what was in it and what it did.

My fingers shook as I emptied the vial into a syringe. I inserted the syringe into his IV tube. “I’m sorry, but it’s the only way. I need to move on, and so do you.”

I depressed the plunger. As soon as the syringe was empty, I stuffed it and the vial back into my pocket. I rose, almost in a trance, and gave his hand one last squeeze. “This is the end of us.”

I slipped from the room just as his heart stopped. A single tear trickled down my cheek, but I didn’t look back. It was over. I needed to move on.