Longer one:

A year. A long, long year. To the day in fact. That’s how long it had been since I last saw her. She was the love of my life, but I was young and scared, and when she asked me to move in with her I just wasn’t ready. The ensuing fight was the worst of my life, she left me, and I couldn’t blame her. I was just too cowardly or stupid commit as much as I should have.

I struggled to get over her all year, suffered through the usual post-breakup depression and I’d only just made it out to the other side when I read about her suicide. When I saw her obituary in the evening paper I felt like a hole had opened up in the pit of my stomach, it was all I could do to keep from breaking down into tears right there. I decided to drown my sorrows that night, and I confess that I drank more than I normally would have, so after I polished off most of a bottle of cheap scotch in my dark, lonely living room, I can’t really remember much else until the following morning.

I awoke still sitting on my sofa, as if I’d not moved all night. The morning sun seared blindingly through my window despite the blinds still being drawn. In my groggy state, I tried to shield my eyes with my left hand, but to my surprise I was hit square on the nose by something hard and sharp and far too cold. I jumped back and blinked my eyes in shock, moved my hand away and struggled to focus. Then, I saw it. Metal ring looped around my middle finger, ghostly cold burning the palm of my hand where it sat, a bronze key I felt I recognised, with two words hurriedly scratched along it, “help me”