I guess I didn't know him as well as I thought I did. Even now, as he's trying to speak, I have no idea what he wants to say. His bloodied lips move laboriously, but no sound comes out. He's dying. Is he trying to curse at me? Tell me something? I can't tell.

I start to laugh despite myself. It's just a response I have to stress. I guess it's a little ridiculous, too. Me, standing over him on this bloody sidewalk. After I was so scared of him. Now, the blood is on my hands. Literally and figuratively.

"You're nothing," I murmur. "You were nothing all along." I doubt he hears me. His eyes are starting to look glazed, his face more relaxed than I've ever seen it. I'd worried so much, when it was this easy. This easy all along.

His blood is pooling on the asphalt around us, shimmering in the sunlight. It almost looks pretty. I wonder for a moment if I should call an ambulance. I guess he'd be dead by the time they arrived. Maybe I could use the fact that I'd called them as an alibi. I could call it an accident. No, his wounds don't look accidental. I don't want to be connected to this. I know the smartest thing to do is to leave now and get somewhere else fast. For some reason, I stay and watch him.

All of a sudden, it hits me that he'll be gone after this. That I'll never see him again. But that's not right. The person in my head isn't the person lying on the sidewalk in front of me. I was wrong about him. The version of him in my head will be there long after he himself is gone. In a way, it's a comfort.

Still, I mutter a quiet "goodbye."

He has stopped moving at all, now. I think he's really gone. I bend down to check his pulse. I feel nothing. Peace. I reach over and close his eyes, my hand smearing blood across his face. For a moment, I'm jealous. Then I'm gone.