Okay, this is a story I wrote for one of my english classes last year. I'm very, very proud of it.
Short disclaimer: I'm neither encouraging assisted suicide nor advocating it. This is fiction, don't take it so personal.
Choices
“Don’t get the wrong impression. I’m not in it to help ease peoples suffering, or to make the world a better place, or any shit like that. I’m not risking my career in medicine for some noble cause. I’m in it for the money and only for the money. I help people commit suicide for the money.”
“Is there a lot of money to be made in that field of work?”
“Tons. Loads. I make more money than God.”
“Really?”
“No, that was sarcasm. Are you an idiot?”
“More sarcasm?”
“No, I was being serious that time.” This guy was starting to piss me off. Stupid psychiatrist. The hospital I work for is making me see him to make sure that my line of work has not caused any unseen mental issues. I told them they were idiots but that didn’t seem to help. They sent me anyway. So there I was, staring at some Sigmund Freud wanna-be. He probably even looked like Freud, but I didn’t have a picture to compare, so I couldn’t really tell you.
“Let’s move on. How many people have you, um…?”
“Helped kill? I don’t know. I use to keep track but I got tired of telling people what the strange markings on my wrist were.”
“So you used these people as an excuse for attempted suicide?”
“No. Like I told my bosses, my job has no adverse effects on me. I was joking, try and keep up.”
“I think this would go a lot faster without the jokes and comments.”
“Probably, but it wouldn’t be nearly as fun.” The look on his face was absolutely priceless; I wish I would have thought to bring a camera. “You should really stop being so sensitive.”
“Why don’t we get to the real purpose of this visit?” He was looking at his clip board. I know what this means. He’s going to bring her up. “Why don’t you tell me about one of your patients? A, uh, Miss Adrianne Jones. One of your more recent patients, I believe.”
In that instant that he spoke her name I saw her face. Her shining eyes, her soft hair. I remember how she always flinched from the touch of a latex glove. She always expected it to be cold against her skin, whether it actually was or not.
“Okay, sure. She was a patient. She had a fatal but possibly curable form of Leukemia. She wanted to die, I helped her. End of story. Are we done now?” I got up to leave.
“Not quite. Please sit back down.” I complied, barely. “Why don’t you tell me the whole story?” He started fiddling with a tape recorder. I was becoming very unhappy.
“What’s the tape recorder for?”
“Posterity. Don’t worry, none of this will leave the room.”
“Fine. What do I say?”
“Start with your name, age, and job. Then simply start telling us how you know Miss Jones.”
“Knew.”
“What?”
“Knew. You want to know how I knew Miss Jones. She’s dead, so I can’t really ‘know’ her, now can I?” The doctor looked a little pale at that point. I think the realization that I killed people was setting in. Personally, I don’t care what he thinks of me, as long as he doesn’t get sick all over my shoes.
“Yes, well, let’s move on.” He started the tape recorder.
“My name is Eric Carson. I am 28 years old and I think you’re a jackass, an idiot and a liar.” The doctor didn’t say anything but his face flushed with anger. I smiled politely back at him. Then I went back to the tape recorder. “I work at Mercy General. I help terminally ill people kill themselves. Kind of poetic, if you ask me. A mercy killer working at Mercy General. Now obviously ‘mercy killer’ isn’t my official designation. If it was, the whole Kevorkian mess would come back and bite the hospital in the ass. No, my official job is ‘general physician.’ But the hospital hired me because I told them that I had absolutely no qualms about helping people onto ‘the next plane.’ So the patients pay a special fee and I help them kill themselves. It’s quick, it’s painless, and I make a lot of money. So does the hospital. It all works out in the end. I don’t know if it’s legal or not. Frankly I don’t care. It all works out on my taxes, so I’m happy.” I paused, not out loud, but in my own mind. I could still hear the sound of her voice. Quietly, calmly, asking me to end it. I don’t think I even tried to change her mind. I’m not sure why. “Now, you want to know about Miss Jones? Fine, I’ll tell you about Miss Jones. She was a patient of mine. And like I said already, she had leukemia. It wasn’t fatal, though, it was only potentially fatal. There were treatments available that had a good chance of helping. But she didn’t want them, so I didn’t give them to her. She checked into the hospital, paid the fee and got all of her affairs in order. I stuck the needle in her IV and she died with her fiancée holding her hand. Quick, painless, peaceful. Just how she wanted it.”
“What was your relationship like with Miss Jones?”
“I told you. She was a patient.”
“I didn’t ask what your relationship was; I asked what it was like. Were the two of you close?”
“Close?”
“Were you strictly patient-doctor? Friends? Lovers?”
“Are you asking if I had an affair with a patient I helped terminate?”
“No, of course not…”
Yes he was. It was like the army asking people if they were gay. They ask it, but don’t actually say it. “Well, I did. There you happy. My big secret is out. Adrienne and I had an affair before she died. I treated her, I talked with her, and I had sex with her. All right under the noses of her prickish fiancée and the hospital board of directors.”
“Are you proud of it? That you got away with it?”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“Let’s move on. Tell me how this happened, how it all began.”
“Fine.” I settled back into the couch, relaxing as my tale unwove. “I first met Adrienne on November 19 of 2002. She was twenty five years old and a ball of joy and energy. When I met her she had already been diagnosed with leukemia but she didn’t know yet that if it was the fatal kind. That’s why she came to Mercy General. To get further information on her condition. So she checked into the hospital and I was assigned as her doctor...”
“Why were you assigned to her? Did the hospital already know her condition was fatal?”
He interrupted me again. I was not happy. “Potentially fatal. And no, they didn’t. She was assigned to me because she was assigned to me. I have regular patients, too, ya know. Not just the ‘special cases’.”
“I see. Please continue.”
“Thank you.” I was barely hiding my anger. This man was really pissing me off. “While we, meaning the hospital, looked into her condition, it was decided that she would start undergoing treatment on the off chance it would help. It made her very sick but she never lost that glimmer in her eyes. She was bright, happy, confident. Her fiancée was always pressuring her to get serious but she would have none of it. She said that if she was going to die, then she was going to die having fun.” I laughed as I pictured some of the conversations they’d had. “He wanted to get married, too, but she said if she was either going to walk down the aisle healthy or not at all.” I alone knew the real reason of course. She didn’t love him; she liked him but not enough. She was so sure she wasn’t going to get better that she decided to let him believe what he wanted. She wouldn’t have married him no matter what happened. “After one particularly bad fight, he stormed out of the hospital and she locked herself in her room.”
“Can patients do that? Lock their doors?”
“No, but she put a chair up against the door and sat in it for most of the day.” I had smiled when she had done that. The look I pictured on her face was very amusing. “We could have gotten in if we had wanted to but we understood what her intent was, so we respected her wishes. Later when I was doing my rounds, I checked in on her. She had put the chair back and was sitting in her bed, still awake. So I went in to talk to her, see how she was doing. We talked for a little bit; then she kissed me. She told me she had been wanting to do that for months but that her fiancée was always around too much. I kissed her back. That same night, we had sex, right in the hospital.” I looked up at the psychiatrist. “Do you want me to tell you what it was like? It’s probably been a while since you’ve had any. You might have forgotten.”
“I’ll have you know that I…” He stopped. He knew that I was baiting him. “That’s quite alright. I think we can survive without a description.” He looked down at his clipboard. “What was the date of this, um, exchange?”
“Well, I don’t write these things down. I’m not a cretin, I don’t keep score.” I paused. “Well, maybe score, but never dates. That’s rude.”
“Like that would matter to you?”
I laughed at him. “Oh, not bad, looks like someone’s losing his temper.” My voice was mocking and the look on his face was absolutely priceless as he realized that he had let me get to him.
“Let’s move on.” He sure said that a lot. “Isn’t it a little dangerous to have intercourse with a patient receiving chemo-therapy?”
“Yes, but that wasn’t the treatment that Adrienne was getting so I was safe. And the date, by the way, was early December.”
“I see. Please continue.”
“We had been sleeping together for about a month when a full diagnosis came back from all her tests. It wasn’t good. The particular kind of leukemia that she had was potentially fatal. The only treatment was chemo, and even then the best that we could really hope for, outside of a miracle, was that she wouldn’t get any worse. And it was only the leukemia that wouldn’t get worse; the treatment itself would make her very ill.”
“And what happened next?”
“I was on my way to tell her the news when one of my superiors stopped me. He said that after I told her the news he wanted me to present her with the alternative to a life of chemo sickness.”
“What alternative was that?”
This man was an absolute idiot. “What alternative do you think? I was to offer her the suicide alternative.”
“And did you offer it to her?”
“Of course I did.” Barely. I had stood outside her door for five minutes before going in. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Perhaps because you had feelings for her.”
“I was having sex with her, not a relationship, you stupid bastard. I didn’t care one way or the other. I never have, I never will. Why do you think I was picked for this job? Because I’m cold-blooded and have no heart. And I like things just fine that way. Are we done?”
“Almost. So you offered her the option and she accepted? Even though she knew there was a chance she could live?”
“Yes.” I was livid. What was the point of all this? Some stupid bureaucracy bullshit? Someone must have found out about the affair and gotten pissed. Bet it was the fiancée.
“And you went though with the process? Without qualms or hesitation?”
My toes twitched in my shoes. It’s a reaction I’ve programmed in myself. Clenching a fist is too noticeable. “Yes.” Obviously I wasn’t going to tell him how I almost refused or how my hand shook when I actually did it. “On January 23, 2003, I inserted a deadly toxin into the IV unit of one Miss Adrienne Jones and watched as she peacefully passed onto her next life. Now can I go?”
“Very well. We’re done.” He stopped the tape. I got up and was at the door when he asked his last questions. “Now, that we’re off the record, though. Mind if I ask you something else?”
“Off record?”
“Completely.” I paused at the door, my hand on the knob. “Did you try and talk her out of it?”
I stared him in the eyes for a moment. “No. But I wanted to.”
“Did you hesitate?”
“Yes.”
“Did you love her?”
I froze. It was the question I had been avoiding for three weeks. It was the question I had refused to ask myself. If I answered it one way, life would go on as usual. If I answered the other way, nothing would be the same ever again. Why did he have to ask that question? I could admit to sleeping with her, I could even admit to hesitating. But admitting to love her? As Adrianne had once said to me “a whisper in a dead man’s ear doesn’t make it real.” If I said it out loud then I’d be acknowledging it. I’d be accepting it and that’s something I couldn’t do, wouldn’t do. I was not a caring person. And it wasn’t because of a traumatic childhood experience; it wasn’t because some woman had broken my heart long ago. I just didn’t care. Maybe Adrianne was right, maybe whispers in a dead man’s ear weren’t real. Was that why I could tell her so much? Because I knew she wouldn’t live to tell anyone else? Gives new meaning to “if I tell you then I’ll have to kill you.”
“Did you love her?” Why wouldn’t he shut up? I felt like he had asked me thousands of times.
“Did you love her?”
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t. I didn’t want it to be true. I needed it to not be true. My life was fine. It was perfect. Maybe I wasn’t happy but that doesn’t matter to me. I don’t feel happiness or sorrow. I won’t let myself. I’m not missing anything. My life was perfect. I had everything I’d ever wanted. A good job, lots of money, a house, a car. And it wasn’t like I couldn’t get sex if I wanted it. But love? Love was never on the list. Love messes up everything. Even trying to decide if I was in love was messing up everything. Damn her. It’s all her fault. Why did she have to care so goddamn much? I’m glad she’s gone. I’m glad. I think.
“Did you love her?”
That’s the question. I guess in my life it’s the only question. The big one. Like “do you believe in God?” or “will you marry me?” My life altering question was four words.
“Did you love her?”
Did I love her? Why was it so hard? Maybe because this time it was real and the answer would haunt me forever. Four simple words. Four simple words.
“Did you love her?
I realize it was just the question echoing in my own mind. It felt like an eternity had passed since he had actually asked me. Do I lie? Could I lie? If I lied and knew that it was lying than it would be the same as answering truthfully. And what would that solve? What do I say? What do I feel? I guess that’s the only real way out of this. Lying won’t work. Avoiding it obviously hadn’t worked so far. Answering may not solve things but at least I wouldn’t be haunted by the question any more.
“Did you love her?”
I’d just be haunted by the answer. Lesser of two evils, I suppose. If I answer, I can move on. If I don’t, then I’ll never be alone again. The question will always be there. She will always be there.
“Did you love her?”
So I guess I answer. I won’t be happy with the answer. I guess, deep down, I already know what it is.
The doctor asks me again. It’s only the second time the question has been said aloud. Everything else was just in my head. Maybe it still is. “Did you love her?”
I had to answer. I had to be done with it. Wipe my hands clean.
“Did you love her?”
Here goes. Moment of truth.
“Did you love her?”
Say the words. Say them now and be done with it.
“Did you love her?”
Did I love her? Did I love her?
The question will haunt me forever.
“Did you love her?”
Short disclaimer: I'm neither encouraging assisted suicide nor advocating it. This is fiction, don't take it so personal.
Choices
“Don’t get the wrong impression. I’m not in it to help ease peoples suffering, or to make the world a better place, or any shit like that. I’m not risking my career in medicine for some noble cause. I’m in it for the money and only for the money. I help people commit suicide for the money.”
“Is there a lot of money to be made in that field of work?”
“Tons. Loads. I make more money than God.”
“Really?”
“No, that was sarcasm. Are you an idiot?”
“More sarcasm?”
“No, I was being serious that time.” This guy was starting to piss me off. Stupid psychiatrist. The hospital I work for is making me see him to make sure that my line of work has not caused any unseen mental issues. I told them they were idiots but that didn’t seem to help. They sent me anyway. So there I was, staring at some Sigmund Freud wanna-be. He probably even looked like Freud, but I didn’t have a picture to compare, so I couldn’t really tell you.
“Let’s move on. How many people have you, um…?”
“Helped kill? I don’t know. I use to keep track but I got tired of telling people what the strange markings on my wrist were.”
“So you used these people as an excuse for attempted suicide?”
“No. Like I told my bosses, my job has no adverse effects on me. I was joking, try and keep up.”
“I think this would go a lot faster without the jokes and comments.”
“Probably, but it wouldn’t be nearly as fun.” The look on his face was absolutely priceless; I wish I would have thought to bring a camera. “You should really stop being so sensitive.”
“Why don’t we get to the real purpose of this visit?” He was looking at his clip board. I know what this means. He’s going to bring her up. “Why don’t you tell me about one of your patients? A, uh, Miss Adrianne Jones. One of your more recent patients, I believe.”
In that instant that he spoke her name I saw her face. Her shining eyes, her soft hair. I remember how she always flinched from the touch of a latex glove. She always expected it to be cold against her skin, whether it actually was or not.
“Okay, sure. She was a patient. She had a fatal but possibly curable form of Leukemia. She wanted to die, I helped her. End of story. Are we done now?” I got up to leave.
“Not quite. Please sit back down.” I complied, barely. “Why don’t you tell me the whole story?” He started fiddling with a tape recorder. I was becoming very unhappy.
“What’s the tape recorder for?”
“Posterity. Don’t worry, none of this will leave the room.”
“Fine. What do I say?”
“Start with your name, age, and job. Then simply start telling us how you know Miss Jones.”
“Knew.”
“What?”
“Knew. You want to know how I knew Miss Jones. She’s dead, so I can’t really ‘know’ her, now can I?” The doctor looked a little pale at that point. I think the realization that I killed people was setting in. Personally, I don’t care what he thinks of me, as long as he doesn’t get sick all over my shoes.
“Yes, well, let’s move on.” He started the tape recorder.
“My name is Eric Carson. I am 28 years old and I think you’re a jackass, an idiot and a liar.” The doctor didn’t say anything but his face flushed with anger. I smiled politely back at him. Then I went back to the tape recorder. “I work at Mercy General. I help terminally ill people kill themselves. Kind of poetic, if you ask me. A mercy killer working at Mercy General. Now obviously ‘mercy killer’ isn’t my official designation. If it was, the whole Kevorkian mess would come back and bite the hospital in the ass. No, my official job is ‘general physician.’ But the hospital hired me because I told them that I had absolutely no qualms about helping people onto ‘the next plane.’ So the patients pay a special fee and I help them kill themselves. It’s quick, it’s painless, and I make a lot of money. So does the hospital. It all works out in the end. I don’t know if it’s legal or not. Frankly I don’t care. It all works out on my taxes, so I’m happy.” I paused, not out loud, but in my own mind. I could still hear the sound of her voice. Quietly, calmly, asking me to end it. I don’t think I even tried to change her mind. I’m not sure why. “Now, you want to know about Miss Jones? Fine, I’ll tell you about Miss Jones. She was a patient of mine. And like I said already, she had leukemia. It wasn’t fatal, though, it was only potentially fatal. There were treatments available that had a good chance of helping. But she didn’t want them, so I didn’t give them to her. She checked into the hospital, paid the fee and got all of her affairs in order. I stuck the needle in her IV and she died with her fiancée holding her hand. Quick, painless, peaceful. Just how she wanted it.”
“What was your relationship like with Miss Jones?”
“I told you. She was a patient.”
“I didn’t ask what your relationship was; I asked what it was like. Were the two of you close?”
“Close?”
“Were you strictly patient-doctor? Friends? Lovers?”
“Are you asking if I had an affair with a patient I helped terminate?”
“No, of course not…”
Yes he was. It was like the army asking people if they were gay. They ask it, but don’t actually say it. “Well, I did. There you happy. My big secret is out. Adrienne and I had an affair before she died. I treated her, I talked with her, and I had sex with her. All right under the noses of her prickish fiancée and the hospital board of directors.”
“Are you proud of it? That you got away with it?”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“Let’s move on. Tell me how this happened, how it all began.”
“Fine.” I settled back into the couch, relaxing as my tale unwove. “I first met Adrienne on November 19 of 2002. She was twenty five years old and a ball of joy and energy. When I met her she had already been diagnosed with leukemia but she didn’t know yet that if it was the fatal kind. That’s why she came to Mercy General. To get further information on her condition. So she checked into the hospital and I was assigned as her doctor...”
“Why were you assigned to her? Did the hospital already know her condition was fatal?”
He interrupted me again. I was not happy. “Potentially fatal. And no, they didn’t. She was assigned to me because she was assigned to me. I have regular patients, too, ya know. Not just the ‘special cases’.”
“I see. Please continue.”
“Thank you.” I was barely hiding my anger. This man was really pissing me off. “While we, meaning the hospital, looked into her condition, it was decided that she would start undergoing treatment on the off chance it would help. It made her very sick but she never lost that glimmer in her eyes. She was bright, happy, confident. Her fiancée was always pressuring her to get serious but she would have none of it. She said that if she was going to die, then she was going to die having fun.” I laughed as I pictured some of the conversations they’d had. “He wanted to get married, too, but she said if she was either going to walk down the aisle healthy or not at all.” I alone knew the real reason of course. She didn’t love him; she liked him but not enough. She was so sure she wasn’t going to get better that she decided to let him believe what he wanted. She wouldn’t have married him no matter what happened. “After one particularly bad fight, he stormed out of the hospital and she locked herself in her room.”
“Can patients do that? Lock their doors?”
“No, but she put a chair up against the door and sat in it for most of the day.” I had smiled when she had done that. The look I pictured on her face was very amusing. “We could have gotten in if we had wanted to but we understood what her intent was, so we respected her wishes. Later when I was doing my rounds, I checked in on her. She had put the chair back and was sitting in her bed, still awake. So I went in to talk to her, see how she was doing. We talked for a little bit; then she kissed me. She told me she had been wanting to do that for months but that her fiancée was always around too much. I kissed her back. That same night, we had sex, right in the hospital.” I looked up at the psychiatrist. “Do you want me to tell you what it was like? It’s probably been a while since you’ve had any. You might have forgotten.”
“I’ll have you know that I…” He stopped. He knew that I was baiting him. “That’s quite alright. I think we can survive without a description.” He looked down at his clipboard. “What was the date of this, um, exchange?”
“Well, I don’t write these things down. I’m not a cretin, I don’t keep score.” I paused. “Well, maybe score, but never dates. That’s rude.”
“Like that would matter to you?”
I laughed at him. “Oh, not bad, looks like someone’s losing his temper.” My voice was mocking and the look on his face was absolutely priceless as he realized that he had let me get to him.
“Let’s move on.” He sure said that a lot. “Isn’t it a little dangerous to have intercourse with a patient receiving chemo-therapy?”
“Yes, but that wasn’t the treatment that Adrienne was getting so I was safe. And the date, by the way, was early December.”
“I see. Please continue.”
“We had been sleeping together for about a month when a full diagnosis came back from all her tests. It wasn’t good. The particular kind of leukemia that she had was potentially fatal. The only treatment was chemo, and even then the best that we could really hope for, outside of a miracle, was that she wouldn’t get any worse. And it was only the leukemia that wouldn’t get worse; the treatment itself would make her very ill.”
“And what happened next?”
“I was on my way to tell her the news when one of my superiors stopped me. He said that after I told her the news he wanted me to present her with the alternative to a life of chemo sickness.”
“What alternative was that?”
This man was an absolute idiot. “What alternative do you think? I was to offer her the suicide alternative.”
“And did you offer it to her?”
“Of course I did.” Barely. I had stood outside her door for five minutes before going in. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Perhaps because you had feelings for her.”
“I was having sex with her, not a relationship, you stupid bastard. I didn’t care one way or the other. I never have, I never will. Why do you think I was picked for this job? Because I’m cold-blooded and have no heart. And I like things just fine that way. Are we done?”
“Almost. So you offered her the option and she accepted? Even though she knew there was a chance she could live?”
“Yes.” I was livid. What was the point of all this? Some stupid bureaucracy bullshit? Someone must have found out about the affair and gotten pissed. Bet it was the fiancée.
“And you went though with the process? Without qualms or hesitation?”
My toes twitched in my shoes. It’s a reaction I’ve programmed in myself. Clenching a fist is too noticeable. “Yes.” Obviously I wasn’t going to tell him how I almost refused or how my hand shook when I actually did it. “On January 23, 2003, I inserted a deadly toxin into the IV unit of one Miss Adrienne Jones and watched as she peacefully passed onto her next life. Now can I go?”
“Very well. We’re done.” He stopped the tape. I got up and was at the door when he asked his last questions. “Now, that we’re off the record, though. Mind if I ask you something else?”
“Off record?”
“Completely.” I paused at the door, my hand on the knob. “Did you try and talk her out of it?”
I stared him in the eyes for a moment. “No. But I wanted to.”
“Did you hesitate?”
“Yes.”
“Did you love her?”
I froze. It was the question I had been avoiding for three weeks. It was the question I had refused to ask myself. If I answered it one way, life would go on as usual. If I answered the other way, nothing would be the same ever again. Why did he have to ask that question? I could admit to sleeping with her, I could even admit to hesitating. But admitting to love her? As Adrianne had once said to me “a whisper in a dead man’s ear doesn’t make it real.” If I said it out loud then I’d be acknowledging it. I’d be accepting it and that’s something I couldn’t do, wouldn’t do. I was not a caring person. And it wasn’t because of a traumatic childhood experience; it wasn’t because some woman had broken my heart long ago. I just didn’t care. Maybe Adrianne was right, maybe whispers in a dead man’s ear weren’t real. Was that why I could tell her so much? Because I knew she wouldn’t live to tell anyone else? Gives new meaning to “if I tell you then I’ll have to kill you.”
“Did you love her?” Why wouldn’t he shut up? I felt like he had asked me thousands of times.
“Did you love her?”
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t. I didn’t want it to be true. I needed it to not be true. My life was fine. It was perfect. Maybe I wasn’t happy but that doesn’t matter to me. I don’t feel happiness or sorrow. I won’t let myself. I’m not missing anything. My life was perfect. I had everything I’d ever wanted. A good job, lots of money, a house, a car. And it wasn’t like I couldn’t get sex if I wanted it. But love? Love was never on the list. Love messes up everything. Even trying to decide if I was in love was messing up everything. Damn her. It’s all her fault. Why did she have to care so goddamn much? I’m glad she’s gone. I’m glad. I think.
“Did you love her?”
That’s the question. I guess in my life it’s the only question. The big one. Like “do you believe in God?” or “will you marry me?” My life altering question was four words.
“Did you love her?”
Did I love her? Why was it so hard? Maybe because this time it was real and the answer would haunt me forever. Four simple words. Four simple words.
“Did you love her?
I realize it was just the question echoing in my own mind. It felt like an eternity had passed since he had actually asked me. Do I lie? Could I lie? If I lied and knew that it was lying than it would be the same as answering truthfully. And what would that solve? What do I say? What do I feel? I guess that’s the only real way out of this. Lying won’t work. Avoiding it obviously hadn’t worked so far. Answering may not solve things but at least I wouldn’t be haunted by the question any more.
“Did you love her?”
I’d just be haunted by the answer. Lesser of two evils, I suppose. If I answer, I can move on. If I don’t, then I’ll never be alone again. The question will always be there. She will always be there.
“Did you love her?”
So I guess I answer. I won’t be happy with the answer. I guess, deep down, I already know what it is.
The doctor asks me again. It’s only the second time the question has been said aloud. Everything else was just in my head. Maybe it still is. “Did you love her?”
I had to answer. I had to be done with it. Wipe my hands clean.
“Did you love her?”
Here goes. Moment of truth.
“Did you love her?”
Say the words. Say them now and be done with it.
“Did you love her?”
Did I love her? Did I love her?
The question will haunt me forever.
“Did you love her?”
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