And perhaps most damning, the image of her he kept close to his chest, thought about most often—her arms around his neck, drunk, delightedly happy, asking him for a kiss.  It’s m’ birthday, she beamed at him, so happy, so earnest and youthful and everything he never had and never was. The memories were flashing too fast now, she was seeing too much, all of the little pieces of her he had taken with him, the fragments he had done his best to hide away and ignore, the little strips of humanity he buried within himself.