Excerpt: Ego Sum Nex

On the back of the page someone had taken a pen and scribbled a few lines in a loopy slanted writing, “She asked me to tell her that I loved her, and had I know that my own time had been slipping out away through my fingers as that of the sand of an hourglass I would have told have taken her by the delicate curve of her cheek and pressed her supple flesh into the palm of my hand, locking her entrancing eyes with my own and I would have whispered in hushed tones, ‘My darling love is but a weak and fleeting feeling when compared to what my heart feels for you,’ and now as I sit alone in the darkness and emptiness of death, I regret the foolishnesses of a young heart and mind and feel naught but the throbbing ache and pining left in the hole you ripped out of chest.”
I stared at the words and remembered Aaron’s words, ‘It helped me get over the deaths of people I loved.’ I traced my fingers over the words. The pen had been pressed so forcefully into the delicate paper that the indentations could be felt on the other side, each tiny dent the ink had left was filled with intangible raw emotion, and those simple words stirred my heart more than any other printed line in the entire book.