Jason Pinter - The Guilty

Cindy smiled warmly. Then her eyes moved to the bed. She looked back at me.

"I think somebody can hear you."

I looked over. Mya's eyes were open. They were filmy, groggy, squinting to regain focus.

I nearly leapt off the chair, went over and knelt down by her bedside.

"Hey you," I said.

"Henry," Mya said, her voice still weak.

"I'm here," I said. I took her hand in mine, gently stroked her dry skin. "I'm here."

I waited outside the hospital. The sun had dipped below the buildings, the sky turning a harsh gray. The air felt cold and I cinched up my jacket. I'd asked Amanda to meet me here, unsure why I chose this particular location, but in the back of my mind I knew the reason full well.

I watched her as she walked toward me. Her eyes were streaked with red, and I didn't have to ask why. She came up to me. Her hands were in her pockets. She moved her toe back and forth across the pavement, afraid or unwilling to make eye contact.

"Hey, Amanda," I said.

"Hey" came the flat reply.

"Were you able to find-"

"Yes," she said, cutting me off. "A friend said I could sublet her studio for a few months. Rent's not too bad. Commute is kind of a killer. Guess you take what you can get."

"Yeah," I said. "Guess so."

She looked at me, the pain and hurt and confusion in her eyes nearly tearing me apart, letting loose everything I wanted to say but knew I couldn't.

"So what happens now?" she asked.

"I don't know," I replied. "I do want to see you again."

Amanda shook her head, and it was just then that I saw she'd begun to cry.

"Nope," she said. "If we end this…I want to end it. I don't want to have to think about this every time I see you. I just want to pull it off. Like you said."

"Amanda." I never wondered, in all my life, what it would feel like to tell the girl I loved, who loved me back, that I couldn't be with her. Part of being in love, part of being a man was putting your loved ones above yourself.

I didn't love Mya anymore. Not like that. But she'd paid a price for my failures. I had a debt to pay her back.

To keep Amanda safe, to keep her alive, I had to leave. I knew pulling away from her would tear open a wound that would probably never heal. But at least at some point the bleeding would stop; it would scar over.

I noticed her hand had left its pocket and was fidding with her jeans absently.

"What's that?" I asked. She seemed surprised.

"Nothing," she said. "Just, you know…guess old habits die hard."

"Show me," I said, but had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that I knew what it was. She stared at me as she brought it out. A small spiral notebook. Just like the kind she wrote in back when we met. Back when she had nobody, and every person she met was cataloged in one of those note-368

Jason Pinter books. For a girl who'd grown up with no real family, no real identity, those notebooks helped her hold on.

I hadn't seen her write in them in the year we'd been a couple. And now that we were coming apart, she needed them again.

It's for the best, I told myself. She's smart. She's beautiful. She has the world waiting to open itself for her. If you stay with her, you selfish bastard, you could steal it all from her.

And so I knew I had to end it.

"If you ever need anything," I said. "Someone to talk to…"

"I won't," she said. "But I appreciate the gesture."

"Right," I repeated blindly. "Gesture."

She wiped her nose, sniffed once.

"Well then, goodbye, Henry." She turned to leave.

"Amanda," I said. She turned back. The tears were flowing from her eyes, and all I wanted to do was gather her in my arms, kiss her and tell her everything would be all right. But to do that would allow events like the other day to happen.

Jack was right. He'd been right all along. And Amanda nearly paid for my ignorance with her life.

"If you want to say something, Henry, say it." My mouth opened but nothing came out. So she said, "Goodbye, Henry."

Amanda walked away without saying another word. I watched as her hand went to her pocket again, then wiped at her eyes, and before I knew it she'd turned the corner and disappeared.

I stared at the empty street for several minutes, half hoping something would happen, the rest of me praying it wouldn't.

And when I was sure it wouldn't, I turned around and went back inside.