Survivor

I never could decide whether she meant to kill me. The poisoned mushrooms may have been a mistake, after all. That's what I assumed they were, waking up in that hospital bed, being told how lucky I was to be alive. But then she didn't come to visit me for two days, and I began to wonder.

They told me on the third day. About the overdose. How she'd blamed herself for the poisoning, how she'd said she couldn't go on living without me. How they'd waited till I was strong enough for the news. And for weeks I felt miserable, guilty for doubting her. But then I thought, what if she had meant to kill me, and failed? What else could she have done or said? What better way to escape investigation, stay out of prison? And perhaps she thought I would follow her example, and she would have killed me another way?

The truth is, I didn't think I could live without her, but I have. Ten long, haunted years; haunted not by the memory of her, but by my own failure to reciprocate, alone with the possibility of being the one more loved. And who's to say it isn't the doubt that's kept me alive? The not-knowing whether I've outwitted her or betrayed her. A lifetime seeking answers to questions I dare not ask.