Have you ever revealed that one secret that no one wants to show?

Have you found it yet, that one weakness that god created in every being? That one thing that'll bring you to your knees in an instant?

I have. And I regret it.

This world works in such mysterious ways.

One day you could be speaking to someone on the phone, laughing and joking about how much your lives suck, yet you know that, deep down, you'll both be okay as long as you have each other.

But then the next day, you get a call.

They died in a car crash.

And you cry and curse the world, sent into a spiral you swear you'll never be able to get out of. You try to find the reason it happened, try to identify if this was your fault, if some fuckin' God was upset at something you did and decided to take that one person in your life away from you. You scream, you break things, you hit the walls and any person who gets close.

Finally, you close yourself up. You sow yourself together at the funeral, telling yourself over and over not to make a scene, not to embarrass yourself, not to make that person who held you up upset.

But when the funeral is over and all the people file out from the grave, you're left standing there, wondering "where did this all go wrong?"

For a moment you swear you'd give all your riches, all your energy, all your youth and beauty to have them back. For a moment, you'd trade everyone in the world just to have that one person alive again. For a moment, you want to give yourself up, just so they can live, can feel what it feels like to breath, to love someone like you loved them.

You know that everything you did, everything you strive for in life is wasted. You realize that it was all for them, that everything you owned, had, wanted, needed, desired... It was all for them, because of them, part of them.

So you hold his brother, try to comfort him while you can't even find yourself in the rubble of a life you've created and lost. You pick up his pieces, create and replace his heart, tell him you're still there for him. You know that's a lie, but you don't care; anything to keep him as he is, even if you're not.

You're alone now, at home. All around you, things are shattered, just like you know your whole being is. You can feel swollen eyes, feel the pain, feel the loss like a knife, over and over, stabbing deeper with each breath you take in this lonely world.

You can't sleep at night. Constantly, your mind goes back to the times when you were happy with them, when you both laughed, when you relaxed on the swings, played in the beach, went on so many adventures. And then you remember talking to them on the phone, joking and laughing about how much your lives both sucked. You start to cry, remembering how you knew, deep down, that the both of you would be okay as long as they were alive.

It's then that you realize that they aren't coming back, that they won't ever come back. Your heart struggles with the pain as your mind replays the words they used to tell you in the middle of the night.

And you wonder that night if you'll ever be able to hear the words "I love you" without thinking of them.

You see, my name is Winry Rockbell, and I lost someone very dear to me due to a car crash three days ago. None of this feels real, but I know I have to tell someone about how I'm feeling. And if not you, a stranger I hardly know, then who? I can't tell his brother; he'll worry for me. He'll think I'm crazy, he'll want to keep me alive, even though all I want to do is die to be with the other, the one I lost.

Edward Elric was his name. He was short, cocky, arrogant. He was strong, powerful, funny. He was sarcastic, half metal, yet so full of kindness despite the sin he had long ago committed. He died too young, at 25, and left me here with nothing except his brother to keep me alive when the night becomes too dark, when the burden of his death becomes too heavy.

I miss him. I miss his blond hair and the evenings I spent braiding the length of it. I miss his yellow eyes and how easily they saw through all of my well-worded lies. I miss his warm-and-cold hands, how he made sure to only touch me with one and gently ease in the other, the cold metallic hand I constantly teased him about, the one I always fixed.

I wonder if, in his dying moments, he thought about me. I wonder if he even had dying moments, or if it was a DOA. I wonder so many things lately. I wonder so much that it kills me inside often, that I end up tearing at my hair, hitting mirrors, crying and going into a horrible and destructive rage.

His brother – Alphonse – tries so often to help me. He knows how lost I feel. He knows that I can't take this, that I was never meant to take this, that I'll never be able to take this. He knows that the very thing I made Edward promise me before we got married four years ago was that he would never, ever abandon me in this world, that he would never leave me alone without a warning. I know too well, too vividly, how it feels to be left alone without anyone there to protect you, to care for you...

My parents were killed when I was younger, by someone I don't want to name, simply because I don't know his name. He used to go by Scar, but no one knows who he really is. All I know is that he's the reason for all my insecurities, for all my fear of being left alone. And now look. Just when I thought I had finally been freed of my fear, some God decides to take away the one and only release I have in the world. They decide to tear away my sanity, to force me to cry every night, to wreck the photos we used to smile in, to demolish myself from the inside out just so I can forget about all the good times, forget all about the beautiful man who had the ability to make me relax.

I don't think I'll ever be able to forget our moments. I want to – so desperately, so horribly – but I'm scared. If I lose these memories that pain me so badly, will I forget him? You see, stranger, this is the web that I have been thrown into, my feet getting stuck into this sticky webbing that is my insecurities and my doubts, my hands falling through the pitholes known as my inability to be strong, my eyes too blurred from crying to see the way out of it.

The way I see it right now, my demise is coming quickly towards me. The end is near, and I find no hope in my life. I'm scared, and all I want is him...

I want Edward. I want to learn alchemy, I want to perform human transmutation, I want to bring him back. Fuck the rest! Damn it to hell and back, as long as I get Edward here with me again!

Stranger, I have a confession I have to make.

I'm leaving my house. I'm abandoning it like the world did to me, four days ago.

You see, yesterday, I hurt myself badly when I went into a rage. I smashed a mirror with my hands, banging it over and over, and I cut myself deeply. Alphonse... He, you see, over reacted. He does think I'm going crazy, and to be honest, I think I am, too. Without Edward, I'm so lost. I can't find my way out of the web, out of the darkness...

So he's putting me in a ward, throwing me to speacilists who swear they'll be able to cure me of my mental sickness. But I say they can't. They don't understand; this isn't a mental sickness, it's a heart sickness. I'm so lonely... I'm so defeated. I'm so upset, so depressed, so useless right now.

But I have no say. I cried when he told me what he had done, when he told me that Riza and Roy would be over sometime today to take me to the ward.

I'm scared, but deep down, I know this is the only way. Alphonse means a lot to me, since he's the only tie to Edward I have now. If he's upset, I'm upset. And if this is his wishes, then I suppose they're mine, too...

So I'll be leaving you now. But not for long. Trust me, stranger, I'll need to talk again, and when I do, you'll be the one I come calling on. So wait for me.

Wait for me like I'll be waiting for Edward.