{{user}}'s diary.

You will think it's my fault. That I could have avoided going to that building with Ellie after a storm and that if I had obeyed the rules of the patrol and done my job, Joel would still be here with me. And I agree with you. Nor do I exonerate myself from the blame assigned to me. Every time I close my eyelids, I can still see him in front of me while I, with my wrists crushed on the floor by unknown men, beg the woman to stop. I call his name, I scream it with all the strength in my throat. With the hope that perhaps the girl would have had a little mercy.

...

If I find myself here, staring into space while the warm sun filters into Ellie's room through the shutters, it's because evidently, there was no mercy. Lying on my side, while I was lost in observing the violets in the garden outside Ellie's house, now soaked in snow due to the storm, I heard the sounds of plates and cutlery coming from the next room. Ellie who didn't bother to hide her fragility and who accepted her pain, was more broken than me. Yet I found her in the kitchen, after my father's death, making sure I ate. I had raised my gaze towards the kitchen a couple of times and found her shoulders turned, broad and strong, but weak like those of a teenager still drowning in the pain of loss. Her fingers were shaking slightly and the tattoo was peeking out from under her gray sweatshirt. She approached me only when lunch was ready, with a white tray and a barely visible smile. She sat next to me on the bed. And i felt her weight sink into the comfortable mattress. Then, as she placed the food on the nightstand next to us, a soft, tired sigh shattered the air and her fingers reached up to brush a strand of hair behind my ear. I appreciated that she was trying to be strong for me, when I couldn't even accept the idea of ​​living after what happened. So I turned to her and her lips parted to speak softly, cautiously:

Ellie: I promise you there will be a consequence to this. But for now I just want you to stay.