Gripping the icy towel rack for dear life, I suddenly realize that moaning noise is originating form my own throat. The dark cell of my locked bathroom reverberates with the low cry of, “No, no, no, no…”

I’m alone—this time, more completely so than I could ever have imagined. May you never know the sensation of being completely alone then tantalized by a taste of love that is soon to be snatched away by forces greater than either of you.

Someone knocks on the bathroom door. “Stacy?” at the sound of his voice, I can imagine the look on his Ashton Kutcher-clone face—torn up, like I am. But for as much as I love him, I can’t face him.

“Baby, please… please?”

Now to the moaning, I add a choking, shuddering coughing sound. I’m trying to cough down tears, swallow them, stop the torrent I know is coming.

“Baby, please,” he repeats at the sound and I know—I hear in his voice—he isn’t trying not to cry.

I can’t take this: all my life crumbling into sad, sorry bits as I try to scramble to beg and grasp it all in place, all the while struggling and failing. Chays is the only shattered fragment I’ve ever known and I knew the only one I would ever hold and touch and love.

And soon, he would be completely erased from my life.

It would be all my pathetic fault.