It was a different type of falling, one that felt like being pulled downwards by a huge magnet, one that made all my feelings come into this wrecking ball that hit the unconquerable walls I had built for myself. All happened in complete silence, darkness covering us warmly to seal the connection that was keeping us tied one to another.

I admit, I tried to pull away and retreated to a corner, ashamed and surprised while he remained there, sitting straight on the floor as if it was one of those luxurious couches in his office. For hours I watched his long nails drawing strange shapes in the dust in between his legs. My mind was registering everything: from the twitch of his lips, to his eyes that seemed to smile from time to time. What strange being he was! How beautifully broken he was and how perfect he seemed frail like that… it all just made me wonder more of where exactly would I fit. I never, not for a second, question the reason that kept him grounded when he was free of chains, free to follow the hunger that was still digging into this bones.

“I won’t answer unless you say it out loud,” his whisper startled me, snapping the string on which question after questions hung in perfect silence.

“Why?” It escaped my lips as softly as a butterfly’s flutter of wings. There was no logic behind it, no over thought meaning or dramatic intention. However, that tiny word managed to somehow gather and hold on all of my thoughts which were like wild mares galloping around in my mind. “Why did you choose to love when you knew it would break you?”

The eyes that turned to me were like black holes: me in, my soul leaving me particle by particle, my whole being pulled towards him. “If there’s no pain, there’s no life. And what good is it to live a thousand years if you’re dead on the inside?”

“But you knew,” I frowned, taken aback by how deep I could see inside of him now. He was a blooming flower under my eyes, his life flashing before my eyes. “You knew he would die. You knew this would come. You… you were ready. And yet you broke so easily. Why?”

“I knew,” he whispered, no longer looking at me, but at the dust on the floor, “but I was never ready for the rupture. I played the scenario over and over again in my head, knowing oh, so well how it was going to happen and yet, the moment he disappeared it felt like a tsunami washed over me. I asked again and again how was I so weak, so easily broken when I knew what was coming my way and I found no answer but the fact that knowing broke me and killed me at a slower pace. It just took his death for my pieces to completely fall.”

But something inside of him wasn’t broken, thing which made me watch him attentively while ignoring the bitter taste of his pensive depression.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he whispered, making me shudder in realization that the same claws that were drawing in dirt were reaching for my heart, deeply digging on the inside. “But,” I could feel him retreating, beautiful flower dying under my eyes, “I did love him. Deeply. Romantically. Egoistically. I loved him so, so much…”

It stung as if I was breathless, as if I had run around the globe in the blink of an eye.

“Why?” Thoughtless me, egoistic me.

“Because my eternal night was less dark with him next to me.”

***

I don’t know how long I spent on that floor. It could be hours or days, maybe even months. All I know is that I lost myself to him, I renounced myself for him, allowing his soul to fully overtake mine. Only when he finally asked out loud the question that had been buzzing inside him head from the moment I broke in front of him did I snap out of the reverie and noticed the darkness around.