"Can you tell us exactly what happened?"
My hands are shaking. Can they see that?
I shake my head and mutter out, "Yeah....yeah I can... it's just hard, you know?"
"Take your time." A woman, standing in the back of the room, is asking. Her voice had sounded sweeter, offering more understanding than the other two men in the room that are hounding me down as if I committed some crime.
The woman walks over to the table, crossing the other side to me and kneeling down beside me. She squeezes my hand, urging me to continue.
I do not turn my head, but turn my eyes to glance at her, and then back at the wall, still processing everything that has just happened to me.
The room is dark. I am alone with these three people. Their job is to find out what happened with us- what happened with her.
How did I get here...? And why isn't she with me...?
"She's not here..." I whisper. I try to fight the tears, but they still come.
"What happened to her?" The woman asks, still holding onto my hand in comfort.
She isn't the one that's supposed to be holding my hand.
"She's gone... I couldn't- I-!" The words choke in my throat as emotion seems to strangle my ability to speak.
"You couldn't what?" The woman continues.
"I COULDN'T SAVE HER!" I yell out, finally staring at the woman with crazy eyes.
She steps back in fear for a moment, thinking for a moment before nodding at the men in front of me and returning to her place in the shadows of the back of the room.
"Listen, kid. Just start from the beginning." The man is annoyed, ready to get the story out so he can go home and be done with me.
"The beginning..." I echoed.
The beginning seems quite so far away, now that we are here at the end of our story...
But I will try.
I will try and tell you what happened...