It's been six weeks since I was in the arms of a stranger in pandemonium, trying to numb the pain in my heart with alcohol and insignificant sex. This pain is still omnipresent, but the memory of the evening is again slightly blurred. There is no total blackout like after our night in Las Vegas. But here, too, certain details remain in the dark. I feel as bad as I have for many years. My heart longs for Alec. With every passing day this longing increases and the pain slowly and painfully eats me from within. Every day I think about when it started to get out of hand. We gave so much to each other. And yet it was not enough.

I remember his loving words and my doubts. Feel Alec's absolute love and anger as the bitterness in its pure form suddenly and unexpectedly appeared in my house. My father tried to contact me every day. Alec must have given him my number. And my anger rushed at an unbridled speed again. Until the day I lost control and just yelled into my phone. The small black plastic device ended up on the wall next to the bookshelf that Alec built for me after an outbreak of my feelings. I screamed and raved, hitting an imaginary body with my fists and trying to numb my pain with whiskey. Without success.

The memory of Alec crying in the doorway and desperately clutching his body haunts me to my dreams. There's a movie going on in my head every night. My subconscious projects images from happy days and floods my receptors with happiness hormones. Every night for six weeks I relive different moments in our unusual relationship over and over again. I'm always happy and so madly in love with Alec. Together we stand on the beach of Blue Heaven, hold hands and shout our love towards the roaring sea with white spray-laden waves. We are happy and feel like the kings of the world. And then the moment happens when the sky darkens, black clouds slide in front of the radiantly hot sun and an icy wind blows through our hair. Pain and suffering now flood my receptors and lure out the darkness. Incapacitated, I have to watch as Alec releases my hand from his and bright flashes of lightning divide the sky. They tear the darkness apart and yet are a synonym for our being. Split, torn, on fire and hopelessly lost. Every night I have to go through the pain and the hopelessness again. With every rumble of thunder and subsequent flash of lightning, Alec moves a little further away from me. He looks at me out of tired, teary eyes and his beautiful trembling lips form only one word. It reverberates in my ears in constant repetition. 'Why?'

I wake up every night shivering and drenched in sweat and look at the other side of the bed. Alec is not there and I'm slowly losing faith that he will ever come back. But the hope dies last. As long as Alec doesn't get his things out of our home, nothing is lost. I have to believe in that. After Alec left me crying in the hallway, I sat for hours on the cold hard stone floor and bedded my head on the wood of the apartment door. I felt sick and froze. Everything spun and the attempt to control my breathing too fast failed miserably. Again and again I fell into violent fits of crying and my sobs echoed loudly in the house. I woke up on the steps in front of my house with a sore head and limbs stiff from the cold. Blackout. At least for a while. I do not remember. Again. Somehow I got into my house from Brooklyn. Probably a taxi ride as it is clearly too far to walk.

It was still dark when I stepped over the threshold of my house and the familiar smell of my husband welcomed me lovingly. It was just the last thing I wanted. My heart contracted convulsively and my stomach was of the opinion that it was enough. I didn't make it to the bathroom in time and spread the contents of my stomach on the floorboards in front of the stairs. A mixture of clear vodka and yellow-greenish shimmering stomach acid spread fluently over the floor. The sight caused a new wave of malaise. This time, too, I wasn't fast enough and decided without further ado to collect the rising remains in my mouth. I have rarely felt this shitty. I was extremely uncomfortable with the contents of my stomach collecting in my mouth and I was ashamed of my behavior. Exhausted, I sagged in front of the toilet and rested my head on the closed lid. The cool plastic provided temporary relief to my heated cheeks. Fortunately nobody saw me like that. Sighing, I closed my eyes and briefly considered never getting up again. But I decided against it. I stoically cleaned the old floorboard and dragged my drunken, aching body up the stairs to our bedroom. Every fiber of my body resisted laying me in the sheets Alec and I had sex on. But tiredness took control of my body and I just managed to get the shoes off my feet before I fell over on the bed, exhausted.

I spent two days in my comatose state. I hardly ate anything and drank even less. My phone kept ringing. But it wasn't Alec, it was Raphael. And if it wasn't Raphael, Andrew's name would appear on the display. Or a number unknown to me that I knew was my father. I owed them all an explanation, I was aware of that. But I didn't make it. I was tired, drained, and hurt. In a state of sorrow and pain, I wrote several messages for Alec. He read each one. Almost at the same time as it was sent, the two hooks changed from gray to blue. But I didn't get an answer. I'm still waiting for a message or a call today. But nothing happens. Minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, week after week.

In the early afternoon of the last day of the year, an angry Raphael stood in my bedroom. Andrew drew the curtains with a swing and I felt like a vampire who was found by Professor Abraham van Helsing and given over to the deathly sunlight. I shouted loudly at Andrew that he should close the curtains again immediately. My best friend thought of all sorts of things, just not that. Together they beat me out of bed and into the shower. To this day I don't know exactly why I gave myself up to it. I stood under the hot jet for minutes, the water ran incessantly over my body and did not even begin to drive away the cold in my heart. My mind wandered to Alec and the sex we had here. Even after the shower I didn't feel better, even the fragrant roast and the golden-yellow potatoes couldn't change this fact. After a lecture that had washed itself and a rather loveless apology on my part, we talked about what had happened. They were sorry, and yet they were more with Alec than with me. I could understand her. Andrew had been terribly worried about me and Raphael just couldn't calm him down. So they decided to see if everything was going well. So I was still alive and at some point they left me alone again. However, it cost me all the persuasion I had. Andrew was very skeptical and made me promise to contact me as soon as it was no longer possible.

A few minutes before the end of the year, I stumbled onto the terrace with a glass of whiskey in hand and looked into the darkness. Inwardly I tried to count down the countdown, but here too I failed miserably. Tears were my new partner. I didn't even try to stop her. I greeted each one like an old friend. I've been crying my eyes out of my head for weeks and the long, cold and lonely nights are particularly bad.

"Happy New Year Alexander," I whispered, gazing into the cloudy night sky with teary eyes. Fireworks in all possible sizes and shapes hissed up to the stars to explode. The echo of thunder tore the silence apart and the darkness was driven away by all sorts of colors for a fraction of a minute. I saw bright, bright stars and rain of sparks, crackling veils in red and green colors and with every bang I winced. The thin trousers didn't even begin to keep the icy cold away from my body. A faded black hoodie with holey cuffs warmed my upper body, but here, too, the cold met no resistance and effortlessly penetrated the thick fabric and my skin. I stood with bare feet on the terrace in my garden and watched the sky as it dressed in the most beautiful colors and invited to dance. My thoughts were incessantly with Alexander and I wept thick drops full of hot tears. Only after the last clap of thunder had died down, the cold had settled achingly in every fiber of my body and I was at the end of my strength, did I go inside. Every step hurt. Still, the pain in my muscles failed to overcome the agony in my heart.