Sorrow

         Brod felt like he couldn’t be any more out of it if he was a zombie, but he made it across the house and down to the facility into his room. The room he had shared with the love of his life, the place that flooded him with memories. He closed his door, dragging his feet towards the bed, and stared at it for a long while. It looked the same size it had been when Melissa was alive, yet suddenly he couldn’t help noticing how big it was when it was empty. He had no intention of lying down on it, so he decided to take a seat on his side of the bed, his back to her side. He held a fist in his other hand, rubbing his two hands together until they felt like they were burning. He wasn’t quite sure what else to do, so he let one hand drop and let the other one slap his face hard enough to snap him out. He tried to stop wallowing in the emptiness and tried to think of moving on, but how do you go about that when you don’t know what it is to live and breathe a different life?
         He stared straight at the plain indigo wall, and he was swept back to memories he never thought himself able to put away. He snapped out before it became too painful, and his gaze came upon his night table and a picture of the two of them in a standing frame. She had always said that picture made her look fat, and he had always told her she was seeing something that wasn’t there because all he saw was beauty. Involuntarily he picked it up, holding it with both hands. He watched with saddened eyes at the smile he would never see again, at the short hair he would never again pass his fingers through, at the waist he could never again make prisoner in his arms while making love to her. His mouth went dry as he could feel his entire body preparing to give way to the sorrow. The sorrow Max had warned him about, the sorrow he felt would never touch them.
Broderick stood up with a purpose and threw the frame as hard as he could against the indigo wall, and watched every last piece scatter across the floor. He held his fingers in a tight fist as he let out a cry of anguish and anger, tears swelling his warm hazel eyes. He let his muscles relax as he gazed upon the mess he had created of a beautiful memory, and his fist became hands again. As if the picture had been Melissa, Brod fell to his knees and scrambled up to it on all fours, ignoring the sharp glass piercing his skin. His hands bloody, he scooped up the photograph and held it gently, whispering words crackled by the pain,
“I’m sorry Melissa, I’m so sorry,” He traced his finger along her face, smearing it with his blood. Brod held the photograph tightly in his hands and brought his knees up to form a ball, one ready to sink to the bottom of the deepest ocean. “I should have been there… I didn’t save you…” His hands began to tremble and tears rolled liberally down his face now, looking one more time at the warm body in the picture he could never hold again. He threw his head back against the wall and welcomed the pain, his mouth now open, unable to contain the sobs that made him feel like the 7 foot, 412 lbs of muscle had vanished and left him with 5 foot and 75 lbs of emptiness.
No matter how hard he tried, he found no reason to make the tears stop, or the pain go away. No reason to stand on his feet, no reason to fight. He saw only lonely darkness, and he let it embrace him for the time being.