The Needing

"Just because you say the words doesn't mean I should believe you!" She sat bent over in her chair, married to her book, selfishly absorbed.

"But I need you! I'm not making this up."

His words did not suit her and she was a suit-me-or-die kinda person. "You're just dreaming!"

"These feelings are more real than anything I've ever felt in my life!" groaned the voice from the next room, aching for her.

"The more you speak the more I hate you!"

She flipped another page, furious at his interruptions and wishful thinking. Why did she have to be burdened with the desires of others? It's their desire, let them live with it.

So he silenced himself, trapped in hell's hell. The one person he needed drew more distant with every sound he made, any sign of his life estranging her beyond his reach. But how to get what he needed without living?

He struggled mightily to retain virtue in her eyes, biting his tongue, hoping to become worthy of her. Yet his involuntary screams irked her to no end, pulling her away from the book's escape.

"You and your exquisite pain!" she griped, disgusted by his wretched state. Suddenly, she wished he would die.

He'd been better off if he had.

***

The next day the police took her statement. "You refused to see the man no matter how much he asked for you?"

"I was busy reading!"

"But it's your job, ma'am."

"I'm not doing something just because he wants me to. I won't stand for him wanting me!"

"Nurse Retched, he very much needed you if nothing else. The traction machine very nearly ripped his spine in two and now he may never walk again. If that's not needing you I don't know what is."

"That's not my fault. I didn't put him on that machine. He put himself on. I'm not responsible for his life or stupid ass decisions. Really!"

"But it's why you're here, to help. Is that not so?"

"I'm here to do what I want. What can't I read a book? Are you telling me that's a crime now?"

For another good hour the conversation continued in fruitless circles, she only wishing to escape back to her book all the more.

***

"He's dead. I don't understand it," sighed the attending nurse. She always hated being in the room with a dead body in case the spirit passed violently. "All he had to do was press the buzzer and I would have come. Why wouldn't he ask for help? Did he just not believe in me at all? I'll never understand people! They can be so frustrating!"

When Nurse Retched came to visit his grave she spat on it, hoping it would burn a hole right through the casket. That miserable bastard and his moronic decisions ruined my life! If only I'd never met him! She'd lost her job and career, a pariah in the nursing community. And the police were still considering filing charges.

A man's voice spoke in her ear. "If you had believed him, would your life be the miserable mess it is now?"

Terrified to the heart, she spun around to find no one there.

"That bastard! He haunts me from the grave! Now even my book won't provide me with refuge. Nothing will...will it?"

Across the way, two impassioned lovers kissed in the honest daylight of the sun, holding fast to their future.