What happened?

There she was, laying on the floor, blood everywhere. I didn’t know where to look, what to do, my heart pounded in my chest, I couldn’t breathe. Her beautiful black hair fanned around her, some in the blood. I could just about see her face behind the hair. She looked strangely peaceful to me. You could see the light had gone from her eyes. That there was no life left in her. I didn’t move. I just stared at her body. Knowing. Knowing she was gone.
The air smelled metallic with blood, and the house was becoming dark. It was silent in the house, outside you could hear people going about their normal lives, cars driving innocently passed, not knowing what was just behind the door.
I don’t remember what I did next, just that at some point I realised I needed to phone someone, it wasn’t long after that the police and an ambulance turned up. People spoke to me, paramedics, a police man, but I don’t know what they said, all I could hear was white noise, all I could see was her, her lifeless body in my mind’s eye, telling me this was somehow my fault.


1

It was a cold windy day but the sun was shining through the clouds. I decided to take the long route to the cafe that I owned. I needed some time to myself. I knew this path well, as I had gone for walks down the sea front often, to clear my mind. Not that it ever really worked. I would stand on the hill side and stare out to sea. Today the wind whipped up my hair around me. The waves crashed against the shore, it was wild out there, grey. I felt like screaming into the howling wind, to cry out my frustration. I wanted the world to know, that I wasn’t coping, that life isn’t all rosy. I wanted to break down and cry. I thought that maybe, today would be the day I finally give in and throw myself off that fucking hill into the cold waves below, the shock would be painful, knock the wind out of me, I’d stay under for as long as I could, not fighting. Just floating. A peace would eventually come over me as my life was pushed out of my body. At least, this is how I would imagine it to be. To finally be free of the pain of living. To finally end the suffering.
Some days I would just stand there and stare for hours, urging myself to jump. Wishing I had the guts to just end it all. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t abandon Amanda, I couldn’t do that to her, no matter how much I wanted to. I had to suck it up and carry on.
So I took a deep breath, and continued on my walk.