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Story: The Day Love Died

No one talked, though. She heard someone sigh a second later. It was a long, deep inhale that meant something. She felt uneasy in the pit of her stomach.
She hung up right away with a grimace. She believed it was an incorrect number or a hoax call, but was it really?
“The news that this company is going under has spread like wildfire. We’re having trouble with the shareholders, our ratings have dropped, and employees are causing chaos. And you want an invitation to an orphanage’s brunch?”
Kellen said “yes” to his boss.
He was staring outside the glass barrier. The streets and buildings of Velden seemed like they were about to eat him alive. He heard his boss let out a dejected sigh and leave.
He put his fingertip on the vein that was pulsing under the skin of his temple. He knew he was standing on the brink, barely an inch away from losing everything, and that scared him even more.
He shut his eyes and saw Lena’s face. Smiling, gleaming, sobbing, and going away because they couldn’t stand to see him. His eyes hurt under the lids that were closing.
He was offered the choice of saving and keeping only one thing out of all the things he was about to lose. He would pick her without even thinking about it. He was doing precisely that right now, which is what he should have been doing from the start while he still had time.
“I can’t stand looking at your face anymore. You make me sick…”
Lena felt like she was crying nonstop and simply wanted to get away from the horrible feeling. But she couldn’t move since her feet were stuck to the earth due to their own weight.
And then, in the blink of an eye, just when she believed she would be locked in this horrible moment for the rest of her life, thin air pulled her out of it.
She was sprinting along a desolate road, and the blackness around her was deeper than any night could provide. At that point, she didn’t know anything except that she was scared something incredibly horrible was about to happen and that the only way to get away from it was to keep running. But suddenly, out of nowhere, a car hit her with its hood with a lot of power. She could feel her bones shattering, her head shaking, and all of her organs moving about inside her. The ache that hit her suddenly was too much to handle.
She was lying on the ground and couldn’t move any of her limbs. She could feel her eyes starting to shut, which she knew was a sign of something far worse.
She had to keep her eyes open.
She had to keep her eyes open no matter what.
But her eyelids felt like they were made of lead. And her baby was sobbing close by.
She had to save the baby. But she couldn’t move or keep her eyes open anymore.
A soft voice broke through her suffering and said, “Lena. Lena! Sweety, wake up.”  “Sweetheart, it’s just a dream. Open your eyes. Shh…”
As she gently woke up from the harsh nightmare and the prison of sleep, she realized she was still crying because she felt so sad and weak. When she opened her eyes, she could only see Damien’s face in a fuzzy way.
“That’s it,” he murmured, letting out a breath of relief. “It’s okay.”
She was out of breath and lifted a shaking hand to wipe away as many tears as she could. Her cries turned into hiccups.
“Do you still have those nightmares?” Damien inquired, taking his hands off her shoulders now that she was awake and calm.
Damien was the only one who knew about her dreams that happened again and over again. After all, she had been living with him for months after he picked her up wounded and hurt off the street.
“Often,” she said, her voice husky.
They wouldn’t attack her every night anymore, but they would regularly do it after becoming weary of hiding behind the corner.
“But they still do, don’t they? A lot of the time.”
“I’ve accepted long ago that they’ve become a part of my life,” she remarked, her voice thick with emotion.
He was seated on the side of the bed, hovering over her as she lay there.
The lamp post outside the window gave her bedroom a dull light. It cast shadows on his face, making the wrinkles of worry on his forehead and around his brown eyes look even worse.
His eyes were quite interesting. In the daytime, they appeared black, but she had noticed that if he was weary or drowsy…  They would change color to a lighter shade of brown that was hard to see.
“I hope the counselor Doctor Robert has chosen for you will help,” he said.
“We’ll find out tomorrow,” she said, blinking her eyelids, which were heavy with sleep.
She had two appointments at the hospital tomorrow, one after the other. First, she saw Doctor Robert, who would check on how she was healing. Then, she saw a psychiatrist whose name she couldn’t recall just now. It didn’t matter; she was confident Damien would remember. He was keeping track of everything for her these days, like when she needed to take her medicine, what foods she could eat, where she had placed her bandana, her doctor’s appointments, and the fact that she shouldn’t take too long baths in case she became sick. He took his job as her nurse very seriously.
His soft voice murmured into the stillness of the room, “Everything will be fine, Lena. You’ll see.”
She grinned. And that smile quickly faded into a look of hope on her face.
But was there really a solution to get rid of these bad dreams? Or the memories? And the most crucial question was whether or not she even wanted to at this time.
There is something bad about melancholy. At first, it seems awful, but after a while, night after night, and then for months and years, people start to like it in a very strange, sick manner. It means more than any enjoyment, and with time, it becomes something to treasure and dream about.
“I only remember that one night with my baby, Damien,” she said, her tongue thick with sleep, yet it was more soothing to talk to him right now. “I don’t have anymore.”
It wasn’t about what he thought of her ailing state or what he said about the constant mention of her night of sorrow and loss. It was more about her letting everything out to someone she knew would never condemn her.
Was she selfish? Yes, maybe she truly was.
“And you’re stuck between wanting to forget and cherish it,” he expressed what no one else had uttered.
She only sent out a quiet breath as an answer.
“It’s going to be okay, Lena,” he stated, this time with more force. “You’ll see.”
She opened her eyes just a little bit. She wanted to know, “How can you be so sure?” She needed to hear it again so she could believe it. She knew what he would say since he had said it many times before.
“I believe in fate, and I believe in you,” he said, and he looked as serious as he spoke. “You’ll be okay.”
She shut her eyes, and this time, the grin on her lips lasted.
Why couldn’t Kellen ever say this to her? What made it such that they were condemned to die this way?
She heard shuffling sounds and knew that Damien was getting up and getting ready to go for his own bed, which was the living room’s improvised couch bed.
“Damien,” she yelled.
“Well…”
“Stay?”
He BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR  She could only feel him slip into the bed with her eyes closed. For modesty’s sake, he laid on top of the cover. “Damien, you’ll freeze. You can get into the comforter. I know you wouldn’t take advantage of me.”
“But what if you take advantage of me instead?” She smiled at the sound of his mischievous voice.
“I’m too hot, Lena bird, go to sleep,” he said with a hoarse laugh.
She did, though. And the remainder of the night was free of nightmares.
The sensation of safety may bring about amazing things.
Lena woke up in the morning and saw that the space next to her was empty. His quiet voice emanating from the living room told me he was on the phone. She made the decision that she needed to send him to work today. He had been her shadow in the flat for two days. It was evident that it couldn’t go on forever; he needed to focus on his new business since the shops needed him severely. Lola couldn’t handle everything by herself, though. Lena was afraid that, at some time, she might stab someone in the eye with her pocket knife.
When Lena or Damien were there, Lola’s wrath or annoyance was one thing, but when they weren’t, it was a whole other thing.