*Not very short!* In a way, she had caused this. During her teenage years she had begged for death as the darkness creeped into her mind, gripping onto her shoulders for years. She had fought, and fought hard she did. The darkness had stalked off to find another victim of mental abuse, and she lead a happy life. Until the barrel of a gun was aimed between her eyes and nobody was around to offer any kind of help. In her head, she was running through a million scenarios where she could have deserved this and none sprung to mind, was this pure poor luck? The man was muttering to himself, pacing back and forth without moving the gun an inch - his finger ready to trigger the end of her life. She had been shopping in the supermarket, earphones in with music blaring as she thought about the date night she had planned for later. When walking home, she felt as though she was being followed and when she looked back she was pushed into the walkway under the bush road. She had ripped her earphones out, eyes wide and legs weak with fear. Especially when the glint of a gun was revealed. But she saw the helplessness in his eyes, and it looked familiar. In a way that tugged on her heart and made it ache. She needed to get out of this. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ She had asked, her voice soft, the opposite to what she really felt. The woman pressed her finger against the ring that was comfortable on her left hand. It was her turn to cook dinner tonight, the ingredients for homemade pizza sat in her bag that was crumpled on the floor. The man stopped and looked at her, confusion clearly there in his grey eyes. But something else was there, something the young woman was awfully familiar with. Pain. Grief. Loss. ‘This is your fault. You look exactly like my Lo, I can’t do this,’ His voice cracked at the end of the sentence and the terrified woman watched in silence as he moved towards the other wall. They were under a bridge, cars were busy above them trying to get to work, to their families whilst she could only think of hers beneath the road. ‘I saw you in the supermarket, I had a plan and you ruined it.’ He stared at the floor and the gun faltered, but she knew better than to run - one sudden move and her fiancé will be arranging a funeral rather than a wedding. She needed to relate to this man, to let him know he isn’t alone and that he doesn’t have to resort to this. She had to brave it and keep speaking, maybe he’ll listen and leave her be. ‘I lost someone once,’ She whispered but it echoed against against the small space beneath the traffic and the man looked up, interest sparking within his eyes. The gun twitched and she bit the inside of her cheek, willing herself not to fall into her fear. ‘She was everything to me, the person I could curl into and hide from the world, the person who could make me laugh no matter the type of day. She was beautiful in every sense of the word.’ Her voice shook as her hands were clammy so she wiped them against her thigh, remembering the day she found out she had lost her fight. The wind blew her hair and she was grounded by the chill in the air and the smell of the freshly cut grass across the road. ‘What happened?’ The question startled her, making her jump slightly on the spot, lost in memories as the silence had stretched on. She stared at the gun, desperately trying to fight the tears as the lump in her throat ached. Her fingers gripped onto the bottom of her top, willing for herself to keep calm. ‘She shot herself on her birthday, she couldn’t do it anymore. It was the day I had lost hope, lost the light in me,’ The man flinched at the pain in her voice, at the torture in her eyes. He looked down at the gun and back to her face again, his eyebrows raised in shock. He had unknowingly forced her to face the killer of her best friend. ‘I don’t know who you are, I don’t know who you lost or who Lo is. But it’s not like this forever. You’ll find the light in other things, in the sunlight behind the trees and in the way your future fiancé teases you endlessly. You’ll see your siblings smile and feel lucky you kept going because you would’ve missed that.’ She stared him in the eyes as she spoke, wanting to make sure he listened, that he understood. ‘I found happiness within my fiancé, who is waiting for me to make pasta at home with our cats. I need to feed them, my fiancé hates the smell of cat food. I found happiness in the chill in the air, wrapping up in a blanket and watching my favourite show. I couldn’t have done all of this if I had given up. Don’t give up.’ The young woman felt the tears fall from her eyes, but she refused to look away. He slid to the ground against the wall and wiped his nose noodles, the emotions taking a toll on him. He picked at the pebbles on the floor, flicking them around as he began his story. ‘Lo was my uh, my wife. She died of cancer a month back. We knew it was coming, you know the, uh, the end but nothing prepared me for it. I keep waking up expecting her to be slipping her dressing gown on to make a tea, that usual smile when she sees I’m awake. I saw you in the market and I lost it, I don’t know why I’m doing this.’ His chest heaved as he spoke, his eyes wild with fright and his head shining with sweat. She watched him, tears falling over the cliffs of her eyelids as she watched him crumble. She knew the feeling. ‘How about this,’ She sat on the ground and took a breath in, as the man fiddled with his phone he had slipped out of his pocket. ‘You go home, and cry. Cry until you can’t, it might feel like you won’t ever stop but you will, and smile at the memories. At the good, the bad, the messy. You got to spend those moments with her, you got to grow with her, to learn with her! You had the privilege to know and love her. We lost them, and it’s so shit. It’s so so shit. But we’re still here. We need to live life for them both.’ She exhaled shakily after finishing, holding her hand to her heart, silently whispering a quick ‘I love you’ her late loved one. And she did love her. But she found happiness and peace with her fiancé. The man let out a sigh and stood slowly, she takes note of where the gun is on the ground and the sirens in the background. ‘I’m sorry, I’ll go home another time and I’ll do exactly that. For now, the police will be here any minute and I’ll explain what I’ve done. I’m sorry I did this, I didn’t know what was happening in my head - I saw her in you and I couldn’t deal with their being another her that wasn’t…her.’ His looked right into her eyes, showing shame and guilt. It had happened so fast, the police came and pushed him against the wall roughly, he let out a cry of pain but otherwise stayed silent. She watched it happen as another officer attempted to speak to her calmly. All she wanted to do was go home to her fiancé, cook dinner and maybe get some therapy.