Painkiller

She lay quite still against the window pane, her breath sending deep tremors through her. The night seemed long and cold. A hazy mist formed on the glass. She pressed her cheek against the icy window, and the tears sliding off her pale cheek cleared the haze about it. She clutched her arms closer to her, in a feeble attempt to block out the cold she felt that had nothing to do with the dismal night. A wave of regret and guilt swept through her. How could she? Why did she? Why her? She knew not the answers to these questions forming in her head. There was no use blocking them out. Her poor physical resistance to them was to be blamed for it. The sorrow she felt was not hers. Sorrow and pain were never hers. They were only for the poor girl who lay crying silently by the window pane on this sorry night. She only felt pity, pity for the girl. But pity for her meant pity for herself. She knew it not, because she didn't want to know it. She had resorted to bury the pain and turn to pity for comfort. Only, it wasn't self-pity. Her other self pitied her. She was only permitted to feel pain. Pain that blinded her puffy eyes, pain that constricted in her throat, pain that bled through her wrist, at the faintly throbbing vein, dying pulse that finally resolved to annihilate her. Fear, she knew, had gone extinct. Death had not chosen her, she had chosen death.