The shower was a long one. Water streamed down her face, mixing with her tears, but who was she really trying to fool? She was crying. Crying like an idiot, even though she had known this moment would come. She had known from the very beginning how painful it would be. But no, she had to postpone it, had to believe she could stay here forever. How foolish she had been.

  Her head throbbed, and her eyes burned. She was choking, her nose clogged, water slipping into her mouth, but it didn’t matter. Maybe it would be better if she simply drowned. Curled up in the corner, she didn’t even notice when the warm water turned ice cold. Hypothermia would be a way out too. Anything seemed better than what she had to do, than agreeing to loneliness once again.

  How was she supposed to prepare for this? Her thoughts scattered, her heart felt as if it were bleeding, something inside her tearing her apart piece by piece. The eternal questions returned, led by the familiar refrain: What was the point of all this?

  She was hysterical. She knew it perfectly well, yet she made no attempt to stop. She wanted to die. She wanted to scream. She wanted anything that might rid her of this crushing sadness, this unbearable sense of not belonging. She was so different that she couldn’t expect understanding, not even from the dead.

  Besides… no. Enough.

  Picking at wounds, raging, drowning in this misery would change nothing. What had to be done would be done. Even if she had to pay for it. Again.

  She was escaping into lofty words again. Crafting that alternative version of herself. The suffering, fragile, yet heroically defiant victim of fate.

  “Admit it,” she whispered. “Admit you’re a fucking wreck. You don’t even know what to do with any of this. You’re just weak.”

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  She was weak. Her last encounter had made that brutally clear. Weak enough that she couldn’t even defeat that demon. And arrogant on top of it. God, the helplessness of it all. Why couldn’t someone walk into her apartment at times like these, shake her, slap her, snap her out of it? Why was there never anyone there when things fell apart? She needed a shoulder. Warmth. A voice that might lend her strength.

  “Fuck this,” she whispered, sobbing. “I’m going to make myself puke.”

  She stepped out of the shower, shivering violently. She dried herself and pulled on whatever clothes lay within reach. Holding back the tears proved impossible. Another wave of sobbing overtook her the moment she saw her reflection in the mirror.

  She looked terrible.

  It took a long time to gather the courage to leave the bathroom. What was she supposed to say? How should she act? The longer she hesitated, the worse everything felt.

  She pressed the handle. The door opened. The abyss waited.

  “Marcel,” she said softly.

  Her own voice sounded foreign.

  “Alice, I…”

  She silenced him with a slow shake of her head.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. She had imagined something profound, something graceful. A line worth remembering. But she had no talent for speeches. No capacity for eloquence. All she could manage was a faint, trembling smile.

  In the end, she said nothing.

  Her lips moved soundlessly, shaping the words thank you, and then she opened the passage. It was weak. Unstable. But it was enough. Enough to cross, if done quickly. Marcel understood immediately. He nodded in gratitude. Just that. Nothing more. And strangely, it was enough. For both of them. That fragile imitation of connection.

  The passage closed.

  She collapsed to her knees, not from exhaustion but from something far worse. The crushing realization that there was no one left to joke with. No one left to laugh with. No one left to irritate.

  There was no one.

  Then another thought struck, sharp and merciless.

  They had never truly been friends. She had imposed this bond on him. Denied him alternatives. Made every decision for him. She didn’t even remember his real name. Marcel had become her comfort, her shield, her silent guardian during sleepless nights. She wanted to believe he was a friend. But he never was, was he? He never could have been, because she had never allowed him to exist outside the framework of her own needs, her own calculations, her own benefit.

  She was an idiot.

  Great. Now she was crying again.