Diary of a Scorpio girl – Entry two – the day that broke me*…

The following piece of writing is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

[Trigger warning: themes of loss and death]

I’ll always have that fateful Sunday ingrained into my memory, it felt like such an innocent Sunday, a Sunday no different than any other day, little did I know that day would change the entire trajectory of my life. You hadn’t been yourself for a few months, you seemed sad all the time, you weren’t sleeping, you were barely eating, and you couldn’t tell me why. I asked and asked and asked and it was always the same response – “I’ll be ok” – but you weren’t, and I didn’t know what to do or how to help you. Countless times, I asked; “is it me?”, “is it us?”, “are you worried about my change in career?” and each time you’d weakly smile at me and say no, it’s none of those things. You were so hard to penetrate, and boy did I try, I tried so hard, I wanted to know what you were thinking and feeling but sharing your inner most thoughts never came naturally to you. ...

You kept it all to yourself, like part of you just didn’t know how to open that door. I wish I had known; I wish I had known what you were going through, may be then I could have saved you, maybe then you might still be here, and I wouldn’t be facing the world alone.

I miss you every day, every single day. All those years ago you saved me, you changed my life, you gave me freedom, you gave me safety, you made it better, you took my pain away. And even though I’ll never blame you for what you did, I wish it had been different. You taught me that it was okay for me to be me, you accepted me, all of me – it was intoxicating, before I met you I never knew what that felt like. I loved coming home to you, just knowing you were there, was the favourite part of my day. You were always the first person I wanted to tell everything to, I talked to you about everything, even my darkest thoughts, I shared it all with you and you were never phased, you were either amused or intrigued by me, you were captivated by me, and you said you’d always be there, you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Which is why I thought we'd last forever, me and you, you and me, the two of us, it wasn’t always perfect, but it was joyful, it was light, it was togetherness, it was connection.

Little did I know that 18 months ago, you became sick and did not seek treatment, you kept that to yourself, you progressively hid how ill you were becoming, you let yourself die because as always you were thinking of me, trying to protect me like you always did. How I wished you hadn’t taken away my right to know, you took away my choice to look after you, you took away my opportunity to fight for you. And on that fateful Sunday afternoon I watched you die; I watched the one person who I thought I’d never lose leave. I’ll never forget the utter horror I felt as I held your lifeless body, the complete paralyzing fear that overtook, knowing that you were gone, forever. I didn’t know what to do, what do you do when you lose everything in the whisper of a last breath. That was the day that broke me.