This was the first time he had held her hand knowing that she wasn't filled with thoughts of that undeserving swine of a husband.

He gently touched her cheek, taking in her beauty that overwhelmed him even in her terrible stillness. He had been sitting by her in the lamplight for what seemed like a lifetime, his eyes filling with tears over and over again, yet never being able to make sense of it all. Confusion and pain consumed him. Neither reality nor reason would give him a hint. Retracing his actions countless times, he was unable to understand how he could possibly have come to encounter this.

He remembered going to her flat, knowing her husband wouldn't be home all night. He only wanted to talk. Surely she must have known how he felt about her, how deeply he loved her, how since the day he first met her she had bewitched him completely so that he could want no other. He could no longer bare hearing the word "friend" coming from her lips. Each time she uttered it, was a bullet to his chest.

He was nothing but honest with her. He wanted to convince her so badly that with him, she would be at peace. He had seen the last year how she had been weighed down by her husbands' affair, how it was torturing her. She would not listen though. She started shouting, she would not have him. He stepped forward, trying to calm her down, but she kept on at it. He didn't even hear her words, only her angry tones. Why woudn't she stop? Why was she being like this? He reached out to stroke her hair, she slapped away his hand. Suddenly he had his hands in a pleading grip around her neck - why was she doing this? Didn't she know this was killing him?

Daylight was peeping through the blinds. Her hands were cold. He rubbed them vigorously, trying to warm them up.