𝙵𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚆𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝙸 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍 | 𝐃𝐔𝐍𝐊𝐈𝐑𝐊 [Collins]

Chapter 23 - To live or to die

(revised)

Two weeks had passed since the terrible news. Or was it three weeks? Time was not relevant to me anymore. Seconds, minutes, hours, they were all the same. My life had been one never-ending day, a very long night that had swallowed me in its gloom. I had been avoiding the outside, living exclusively in our bedroom, never leaving our bed. This room had witnessed most of our moments together, the most intimate declarations of love as well as the most precious bursts of laughter. It was now my prison, one I had built for myself. Staying there was like clinging to his memory, refusing to let him go, even if he was not there anymore.

The curtains were constantly drawn to hide the rest of the world that was mocking me. The blue sky, the blossomed trees and the singing birds were a harsh reminder that the cycle of life was moving on without me. I was a mere spectator of the city and its people, condemned to look at the happiness of passers-by and witness what I would never experience on my own. I didn't have the strength to face this reality and I had locked myself inside, losing myself in my overwhelming sorrow.

Days would pass without me leaving my bed, or eating anything. I had lost everything; joy, appetite, feelings and will to live. I had tried to find a purpose, a will to go on, but every thought of a life without him made me cry until suffocation. He used to be my future, and now I had no future anymore. I was waiting for the end of my suffering, which, it seemed, would never come. It was as if the devastation I was feeling in my heart had turned into physical pain, as a proof that my distress was legit. It had been so intense sometimes, I had lost my breath and collapsed in weakness. I could not stand strong, I had no reason to anymore.

My relatives had tried to save me from drowning, but they could not do anything if I was not fighting to swim to the surface. They were my life jacket, keeping me alive when I had myself given up and was waiting to sink to the bottom of the ocean. My dad had been there to wipe my tears but his worry grew stronger when he realised he could not stop them from falling. Joseph had tried to cheer me up with news from the pub, but he had been met by my unbroken silence and my vacant stare. Andrew's sisters and parents had been visiting me every day, forcing me to get up, to shower, or try to eat. They did their best. As much as I wanted to be left alone, Andrew's picture pressed to my heart, lost in my thoughts, I probably needed their presence by my side and they knew it. They tried to give me the reasons I needed to move on and resume my life without Andrew, like that letter they had received that they hoped would give me a kind of closing. It had been sent shortly after Andrew's death by one of his teammates, to give us the context we had been lacking, to answer our questions about how something like that could have happened. I could see me sitting in the armchair, holding a warm mug of tea while listening to Andrew's father reading its content to me.

"I feel responsible for Andrew's death and for that, I will never be able to apologise enough," was how he had started it, causing my stomach to be all tied up with knots, but I kept listening nonetheless. "He has always been kind to me, sometimes playful, sometimes too honest, but always righteous. He was like a big brother and always acted as such, like the day he left us. All I can say is that it should have been me. I had been called, not him. I was tired, I was sad and scared and he had noticed. And because he was so kind and helpful, he offered to stand in for me, and I did not refuse. I was so glad I could avoid such frightening duty, I have let him do my work, without thinking he had a family in London, he had a wife at home, waiting for him to come back alive, while I did not have much to lose. But he made it sound right and forbade me to feel guilty. He left confident, smiling, joking about how I would owe him a beer later that day; but he never came back. He was shot down by a German fighter. Our teammates said the weather turned awful that day and they were lost in a thick layer of clouds when they encountered the enemy. The dogfight was intense and way too dangerous, for the bad visibility prevented them from distinguishing the German aircraft from the British ones. And so Andrew ordered to retreat. It happened when he was checking that the three other fighters were still responding to his call. His radio turned silent and his plane was swallowed by the clouds, in front of one of my teammates. He had no chance to avoid the firing, for the enemy came by surprise, and nobody had seen him. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time. But it should have been me. I should have died that day, not him, and for that, I'm terribly sorry."