That night I spent wide awake, the cap in my hands over my heart, a jersey wrapped tight around my body. I lay still throughout the night, listening to the song of my life. Smelling her scent in my room. God, it felt like oxygen. When I closed my eyes and wandered off to the moments we shared, I didn’t want to open them again.

At times when I was with her, I did not want to blink so as not to miss any moment of that day so that I could reminisce tomorrow. I wanted to cry to blur the images in my mind, but my well of tears had run dry. At times like those, I reached out for a razor. Every cut I inflicted revived my life, every drop of my blood discarded all the thoughts, it numbed the feelings and I could be pure again. On my bed, throughout the night, I lay.

Get over it, they said but God knows I tried. It worked like an addiction. You go into rehab and have no contact with the world, no contact with the drugs. You fight and then forget, but that fateful day when you walk out of that rehab, you face the cruelty of the world. The sense of being lonely and the memories of how the drugs made you feel comes rushing back to you. Just like that, you relapse. I understand. I used to cut all contact with her. I would forget about her but then on the day I finally saw her face again, I melted.

She is one of those beautiful tall women, with a petite body and a strong character. Her face was structured and sculptured, eyes pure white like a baby, lips lined, brown complexion, beautiful long hair and a smile that sets everything straight. God creates. Ask me why I love her so much. I didn’t know myself, but I just knew that I loved her. I used to tell her all the time, but I might as well have spoken to a rock. She would give me that beautiful smile and say: “Okay, you’re crazy,” and that used to drive me mad. It would stab my heart all the time.

I had this cap I used to wear and on one of our romantic days, I put on her head. It adopted her scent and from that day onwards, I couldn’t wash it. I didn’t want to wash it. People always told me that I was obsessed, but no one felt what I felt every day of my life. I guess no one really understood what I felt for her. What she made me feel.

I had lived in agony for more than a year. Cut contact between us a couple of times, but every time we would find ourselves together again. In between those thoughts, the morning sun shone on me. I had not slept a wink. I was caught inside my own heart’s affairs. I was worn out, tired of fighting this wonderful feeling; the feeling I wanted to feel yet I had to resent. I was out of words. I was out of tears. I was out of examples. I was out of explanations. I was tired but I went and sat in front of a mirror, I stared at myself and with the last ounce of energy left in me, I spoke to myself.

For the longest time, I had been living with this nasty scar from this fire I did not even start. I had always wanted her to end it, but she wouldn’t, and I didn’t understand why. I have always wanted to but I just couldn’t. I thought she was heartless, but the thought made me love her more. At that moment I thought: Enough is enough! No more! I have to end it!

The sharp sting of pain from the cuts on my wrists with a razor last night brought me back to reality. I had to go and end this right away. I took a deep breath, gathered up some courage and surprisingly, I felt light and fresh for someone who had not slept. I was an insomniac, that’s for sure.

I dressed and had to wear a sweater to cover my wrists. People were going to stare, but I did not mind at all because I was on a mission to face my demon, my love. I made the trip, arrived at the door of her apartment and knocked. A voice inside me warned me to turn back home, to just forget about this and go back to suffering alone. I had found a way of surviving well with cutting myself. I was still consumed by my mind when the door opened. “Hey!” she said with a smile. I barged in without responding and she just closed the door and turned to look at me with disapproving eyes that questioned my intentions.

That was it. There and then began the conversation of my life. I could not contain it any more. I could not hold back my tears. I collapsed on the couch in the living room. She still had not said a word but she sat on the couch next to me. She knew what I was here about; this was our routine. Well, today I was going to end it. She stared at me; well maybe because I looked a mess. I guess she was feeling kind of guilty that she was the cause of all of this.

After a silence that took forever, I gathered the courage to talk: “From the day you told me that you loved me, Jane, I fell in love too. I don’t know why but I did, I just did. I cannot tell you that I will stop, but I have to try to move on because I cannot seem to get the same love I give you.”

There was silence and then she responded: “But Betty, I have a boyfriend and you are a woman. I’m not homosexual!” That stabbed me like it usually did. “I am not lesbian!”

Those words woke something in me, a beast. “You’re not homosexual? Then why did you tell me that you love me? Everything we have done together showed your love to me. Your body made promises to me, Jane. I cut myself so as not to think about you. We have done this a lot of times but this time it’s different, Jane. I am not here to ask you to give us a chance. I am here to tell you that I’m letting you go.”

“That was in the past,” she said, and that sent me over the edge.

I was raging. “The past, Jane? The past! It is always the past when you want it to be. I asked you a lot of times to let me go, to let it go. You didn’t then because it suited you!” My heart was beating so fast; my blood was boiling. This is the feeling I got when I felt the need to cut myself. This was not pretty. It was the kind of anger I could not breathe out. I tried but it burnt my lungs.

This was taking a different turn. I turned red. I have always told her about these attacks, but she took them lightly and now it was all happening right in front of her. She was scared and I was shaking.

I lost it! I reached for a knife. At that point, the thought of stabbing Jane dominated all my thoughts. I lost my sanity. I stabbed her numerous times and there was blood everywhere. She had always wanted to end it, but only to start it again when she wanted to. But this time I wanted to end it myself, forever.

At that moment, a breeze of cool air ran over me and the reality of what I had just done dawned on me. I was free from the depression and the constant heartbreaks. I was free and just like that, it was the end of the conversation of my life.