My secret revealed

A few months after she told me the horrible news her condition quickly got worse. She soon could no longer go outside and she spent her entire days in bed. It was as if her life and willpower were completely drained now.

It wasn’t just her. Her parents had been fighting for so long to keep their daughter alive. Now all they had to show for it were stacks upon stacks of medical bills. While their daughter was slowly being dragged into the afterlife.

I myself wasn’t much better off. Every time I saw her was like a million daggers of guilt stabbed into my heart. But I couldn’t abandon her, no matter how much it hurt.

I kept visiting her and tried cheering her up by watching movies together. Sometimes we played games but she didn’t have the energy for those most of the time.

Sometimes we just sat near each other in silence for a few hours. Her in her bed and me in a chair right next to her.

It was during one of these silent moments that it happened. She looked at me and broke the silence.

“Fien.”

I turned to her and asked her what was up. She hesitated, we looked into each other’s eyes. Hers looked empty.

“I have a request.” She said and gave me a weak smile.

I asked her what it was. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Normally if she wanted me to go get something for her it would be a lot more casual. Something like: “Hey, could you get me some chocolate.” Or something.

Instead she weakly grabbed my hand and said: “I’m tired of this pointless suffering. I can’t keep fighting. Not when I know I’m gonna lose no matter what. So please, help me end it now Fien.”

I was shocked. She was asking me to help her kill herself. I refused and shook my head, tears formed in my eyes. I squeezed her hand. “I can’t!”

She begged me to do it. Said it would be easy, all I had to do was crank her IV all the way up. The painkillers would do the rest.

I begged her to not ask me to do it. “I can’t kill the person who’s most important to me.”

“It’s because you’re that important to me that you’re the only one who can.” She answered. By now she was crying as well. Her eyes were no longer empty, they were filled with sadness and pain.

“My parents would never allow me to do this. But you’ve been with me the entire time. It’s because of you that I made it this far. I would have given up far earlier if I didn’t have you. That’s why..” She squeezed my hand with the little strength she had left. “Please Fien. End this suffering, for the both of us.”

By this point I could barely see through the tears. I nodded.

“Thank you.” She said.

That’s when she gave me the book. I knew she had been writing it but she only recently finished it. I accepted the book and got up from my chair. We smiled at each other as I turned the IV up.

I sat back down and took her hand again. She thanked me again one more time. It felt her grip weaken and eventually her hand went limp in mine. When I wiped away the tears I felt only one thing, relief.