<Melissa>
John was a statue, immersed in his grief. He sat there, rigid and cold, staring out the window as we drove along the street covered in a fresh powder of snow. I took his hand in mine, trying to offer some comfort, but he didn’t respond to my touch. After a few seconds, however, he slowly curled his cold fingers around mine and squeezed my hand. I looked up at him and smiled, but he had not moved his head or body. He still stared blankly at the houses as we drove by. I couldn't blame him; he had lost nearly everything. To an extent I knew that he blamed himself for what had happened, but who could have known that we would all get sick with that disease?
I had been with his family on the trip to the Amazon, and I remember coming home, just glowing and reminiscing about the vacation, but then I got the headache. It wasn’t bad at first, but it got worse and worse. I remember talking to John and how he complained that his head hurt, too, and so did the rest of his family. Within a few hours, they were all in the ICU. I was lucky; the disease didn’t affect me as bad, but I was so afraid that I would lose John. When John called me and said his parents and his little sister had passed away, I wept, but deep inside I think a part of me was thankful that it was them and not John. Now as I sat there, staring at my boyfriend, I realized the cruelty of being a survivor. John would never forgive himself for the death of his family. He would always be questioning why and what he could have done to stop it from ever happening, but I knew he was grateful that at least I didn’t die, too.
I was going to do whatever I could for John. I loved him and to see him in this kind of pain, it broke my heart into a million pieces. For now, there was nothing I could really do, but be there with him.
~Torch~