It wasn’t how he’d planned to go, but his great grandfather had. And he had inherited that particular curse, which was actually good, considering what else he could have. It had allowed him to exist for this long, though now he wish it hadn’t. 

The aspirin seemed have allayed the situation for the time being, but he good go in a decade or go in his sleep that night. There was no way to tell. DVT were wicked that way, wicked as she had been — a secretive malevolence imparting a silent death. 

And, though he hated her mind, hated her coldness, hated her inability to see the bigger picture and stop taking herself so seriously, he still wished he had something, anything from her to make the days less stressful. She’d gotten her way. She’d used his attention, taken his heart and stomped on it, taken his job, and made him hate himself for how he’d reacted to her treachery. Only she could have done that. She likely gloated over it, though she was just as shameful. 

But his dreams would not leave him alone, as few of them as he had with no sleep. And though her mind was a cancer, made that way, and though she had decided to ruin herself with her choices, part of him still pined for her, her body, her scent, her voice. And he only wished she could be charitable enough, before trapping herself with someone who never loved her as he did, to give him a piece of herself. 

She knew what he would want, as she had made it into a melodramatic canard, since he knew it didn’t actually bother her. And he knew that, even if it meant he could forgive and forget, if it meant being able to claim a debt paid without any admissions, she would not even entertain it. It was just a passing musing, his desperation leading him into ridiculous fantasies, no matter how pragmatic they were. 

She could have at least basked in knowing she was wanted that much, in that way. Those she sought had other fantasies, for the younger, though they would take her just to have the possession. He wasn’t insulting her, merely stating a truth she had to know herself. That’s what they were, and, if they had the chance, they would cheat and not think twice about it. At least he wanted her for real, whatever he could get. 

But the silence would remain and no pieces of her would ever come. He could beg her forever and there would be no concessions, only stone. And, with his heart dead and his body plotting his end, he would suffer the absence for the rest of his life, however long or short that was, with nothing. He had paid.