Kat stands in the open car door. The dark grey paint seeming to blend into the puffy, cloudy sky. My lips tremble. My heart rips into two. Each fibre ripping separately, makes the pain increase tenfold. The sky presses down on me. My throat is closed up. Trails of wetness stain my cheeks.

"Please". My voice trembles as I force it from my throat. "Kat". Tears blur my vision as I struggle to breathe, to talk, to convince her not to leave in that car. "Please... don't". Some of the droplets fall off my cheeks. The others curl around and settle in the crevices at the bottom of my nose. Uncontrollable, all-consuming dread and grief fill me. These emotions don't flow through me or smash into me like the books always suggest they do. They feel like they were always there. Like the memories I have of happiness are false. Of surprise? Fake. Of anger? Nothing but a figment of my imagination. I am a container of dread and grief. I always have been. The sense of fear and hopelessness are merely another part of the potent dread and grief.

"Don't cry," she says soothingly as she sits in the car, "I'll come back soon". All that I can think as my stomach churns and my head turns to mush is that she's going to die. It feels like a fact. Like I saw it happen. Like I came back to stay her course but... I'm failing. Her slender, tan arm reaches out to close the door, window rolled up. "NOOOO!!!" But her car rolls out of the driveway. She waves to me and zooms out of sight. I scream until my lungs are deprived of air, leaving my throat raw. I... failed. 

With that final word, my eyes fly open. Tears cover my face and pillow. They are warm and wet. The profound loss from the dream remains. Droplets of distilled hopelessness and sorrow flow from my swollen eyes and down my cheeks. My throat continues to ache. I don't seem to have lost anything but it hurts as if I have. For some reason, I know that Kat died, even though I didn't see it. This knowledge leaves me broken-hearted and silently weeping. Aching for a girl, I never met. Crying for something that never happened.