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The wave hit us.  I fought for breath, but just as his hand slid from mine I lost consciousness.

Murmurs.
Murmurs.  Voices.
Darkness flickered away into hazy light and shapes.  I gasped, fighting for air, only to realize I didn't have to fight anymore.  I was safe.

Everyone smiled at me.  My friends, family, doctors.  I didn't recognize them, though.  They were just faces.  I looked for him in the throng of faces.

"Where's Neil?" I said thickly, forcing the words out like clay through tight mesh.

They all looked away, one abashed face.

"He made it.  Neil made it, didn't he?" I said, panic rising through my numb body like heat.  I waited until my limbs were warm before clumsily pushing myself upright.

"Where's Neil?" I repeated.

"He's… dead," one of the doctors said slowly.

"Neil?" I yelled urgently, scrambling to my feet.  Something inside said to hurry.  Another said he was fine.  Another said he was dead.  Yet another told me to sit down.  I only listened to the one that whispered his name, already hoarse with tears.

In a flash that felt like eternity I was at my friend's house.  Her desk was cluttered, and her chair rocked as if someone had just bounded from it.

"Where is he?" I called urgently at her house.  No one was home.  No one could help me.

I paced our apartment, his and mine.  He had been kissing me here, and I longed to kiss him.  I could still feel his touch, and I longed to touch him.  He was there, tantalizingly out of reach.  So close beyond that blind wall…

“Neil!?” I screamed.  He was alive.  He had to be alive.

I searched for him everywhere.  I spent what felt like a minute or maybe a year reading through the phonebook to find his name.  Again and again scanning the hundreds of pages, willing his name to show and allay my fears.  I saw nothing.

I ran through the halls and the streets, through the countless rooms.  I was out of breath but kept calling his name.  He was somewhere; I just had to find him.

I never found him.  He was gone.

"Neil," I whimpered.  He could not be gone.  I loved him with every fibre of my being.  He couldn't just be dead.  I loved him!  God, I love him!

I sat on the floor surrounded by the torn pages of the useless phonebook.  I crumpled as I screamed his name one last time, a useless doll with her stuffing ripped out.  I couldn't feel my nails digging into the sides of my head, although I hoped the pain could take the edge off the greater one.  A low moan issued from my mouth as I cried, rocking back and forth until my body was as numb and tired as the thoughts that had be coursing through my mind all day…all week…or was it a year?  It was forever.

He can't be dead.
I can't live without him, and yet here I am living.
Where is he?
He has to be dead.
He isn't dead.
Yes, he is.
No.
I can't live without you.
I can't…

I lost all hope just as a pair of arms wrapped around me.  He was here.  I turned to see his face, and a sob escaped my mouth at the sight of those familiar features.  It was as if the dam had been opened, and I was shocked at going from bone-dry to drowning...

"I love you."

I cried in his arms all night, the tears bittersweet but happy.