He cried.

Tears smudged his rosy cheeks and penetrated his mouth with each hiccup. He coughed when he could no longer inhale. I did it for him, one gulp at a time. Should I taste his soaked lips or leave in complete silence? My fist hit the wall beside me every time he clutched to the bed’s sheets, the bed’s blankets, to him. Even in misery, he’d still call for him. Even after I ed him, he'd only think of him.

I’m the villain of this story and I wasn’t sure anymore if there was anything worthwhile between its pages. Food had no taste, music sounded grotesque and my skin shivered each time I let the shower wash the past. And after all that happened, I did not know why I had been trapped once more in his presence.

I thought I had done right, thought that there was absolutely nothing wrong in taking my chances. I risked it all and he smiled back, lightly slapped me as a joke and then offered me one kiss to seal the deal. I didn’t think then it was all for show, one skillfully planned drama that revealed each act every time we’d meet. I was ecstatic, carried inside another world through his wings.

It became difficult when he proposed something more. I wasn’t ready, I couldn’t do it. I repeated to myself that it was better to say no and live without regrets than to accept and be inside a hole I cannot climb out of. I was foolish enough to believe he was sincere and that he had come to me because of me. There is absolutely nothing worse than to watch someone cry underneath you after it's all over.

I felt dirty, I felt repulsed. I had done nothing wrong, only what he asked me to, and even when sobbing all night long, I could only hear his name over and over again like a mantra I could not erase from my head. I felt like a , I felt like I had taken away something precious, something that can never return. More than anything, I felt used. I was nothing more than an episodic character who came one scene, threw his lines and then exited on the other side – never to be remembered, never to be cited, never to be used as reference by students that search for the easiest way out of an assignment.

And only I knew how my heart tightened and slowed its beat when I saw him crying once more by his bed the following day.

I hate destiny. It twists until it royally messes your life into a big pile of trash.

I turned my back and hastened my pace down the hallway. I had to escape, I had to go somewhere far and stay there until I could no longer picture his laughing face.

“Love you?” he said, “I don’t even like you. I had to blow some steam off, you were there, what’s so hard to understand?”

Yeah, I might have not fully grasped the definition of that word, but I waited for years until he’d finally notice me too.

In the end, everything was for him, for the other – even our relationship.

I ing hate him.

Without paying attention to my surroundings, I found myself wandering like a madman.

“Go get me something to drink,” he ordered before entering the room. He didn’t think I’d linger around and peek between the door’s crack, didn’t think I’d hear him, didn’t think I would fall as those wings turned into thin air. He didn't think there was someone around to see him suffer after a beaten bedridden him.

So why was I leaning against a vending machine? Had he crawled so much under my skin that I could no longer control my body?

He liked apple juice.

I searched my pockets until I could find the right amount, pressed the appropriate button and waited.

He really liked apple juice.

I picked it up. I stared at it. My fingers wrapped around its green exterior with the fruit’s image above the product’s official name. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve a thing.

Unconsciously, I had to find another point of interest. That juice box was driving me crazy.

Somebody was staring at me.

Had I screamed so much inside?

Then it hit me.

No, he wasn’t staring at me.

Nobody had ever stared at me.

“Hey,” I prayed my voice wouldn't crack. “Do you want this?” I slowly showed him the juice box.

“No,” he pulled a pair of crutches closer to his chest, “I’m fine.” His eyes lowered to the floor.

I couldn’t help but smile. It was too painful not to. I walked by him and decided that it was a waste to throw it away and a waste to give it to the one who had asked for it. I let the juice box forgotten on the bench. The boy was a better choice.

When I welcomed the cold evening outside, my eyes traced the darkening sky towards the horizon.

How I wish they hadn’t dried. It stung too much without release.