I lay in bed. The last time I looked at the clock, it was a little after two in the morning on Saturday. But time was no longer a specific hour and minute. It had become a cruel, blurred line – six days connected into one, each day dissolving into the grayness of the next. Eighteen-hour workdays, over and over again. I survived, as usual – stubborn, stubborn, refusing to give up, as if to prove something. To them. To myself. To you.

It all started after you left.

I still remember you once said that my ambition was beautiful. You called it a fire, a beam of light that could dispel the darkness in any room. I believed you because when you looked at me, the world seemed to be quiet. My edges converged and softened. To others, I was untouchable, distant, even retreating. But not to you.

That night – the night we last talked – it rained outside the window. I can still hear the sound of raindrops hitting the window, each drop like a countdown, knocking somewhere in my heart. You said you would be home soon. I smiled and told you to drive carefully, and told you I would wait for you. So I waited, curled up on the sofa, pretending to still smell your scent on the cushions. And my phone was turned off by the dead battery, and it was as quiet as a deep sea.

When the knock on the door came, it felt like thunder splitting the world in two.

They say everything happened so quickly that you didn’t feel any pain. But what about me? Before the light in your eyes disappeared, did you think about me? Do you know that losing you has collapsed my heart into a wasteland – a ruin that once nurtured love? How I wish I could be there, holding you, holding you, and not letting you go.

But I wasn’t there. I will never forgive myself.