The fundamentals of ruin

The time to decide is now. I stare at the clock as another minute goes by. My emotions play on my face, and I am motionless for a second before I slide from the seat of the chair to the floor. I crumple under the weight of a strange choice, forced to make a decision on a burden I never imagined I would bear. I don't want to be here, I chant, it should have been me. I am strangled by my thoughts, but he knows what to say. I can tell his speech is practised. He is weary now, and needs me to pay attention, but can he not see that I cannot breathe. I am choking on memories that now seem to taunt me. "She signed the DNR," he says. She can't go, I say with my eyes, I need her. I am reminded of the morning before, the lightness in her voice when she asked "will you be okay without me?"