hurt people hurt

I wish I'd known.
About the pain he was hiding.
I mean, we all feel it, but for him it was more than that. It was more than the usual human-hurting-sort-of-pain.
I wish I had seen it in his eyes when we first met. I wish I had looked just a little deeper. I mean, he had told me he was hurt but I didn't know the whole truth. I wish I hadn't stopped at noticing how dark his eyes are because if I would have looked beneath that, I would have seen that the colour they had wasn't all because of the melanin concentration on his iris. It was more, way more than that.
I wish I had at least heard it. In his words, the ones he whispered, the ones he said loudly because now I know for sure that all the hurting was there, screaming behind his voice. If I had listened a little closer I would have known. But all I cared about was his sweet voice and how in love I was with the way he called my name.
I wish I had felt it, when he first grabbed my hand or when he ran his fingers through my hair. I wish that pain would have been like electricity, would have run through my body as it was running through his. I wish I could have felt it, but I was too busy thinking that his skin is touching mine, too busy to notice that he was reaching out.
I wish I could have tasted it. When he kissed me, pressing his lips against mine. You know how they say that when you kiss you can sense if the one your kissing is fit to be your potential mate? You exchange chemosensory cues and assess whether or not you are both healthy. Great thing, right? Except it's not. Dammit, I wish I could have felt his pain, not if he was fit to be my mate. Why do I give a shit about that? I wanted to save him. Why couldn't I just taste his hurting? His lips pressed against mine, his tongue next to mine, his hands touching my body, my hands touching his, all this pshysical interaction but the lack of ability to sense the agony in his heart.

But the truth is, I'm too human. Too regular, too keen on trying to be the best I can be when in fact, the person right next to me is at its worst.Now it's just too fucking late. I couldn't see it, hear it, feel it or taste it, but I can sure as hell see the consequences. But the consequences mean it's past the time when I could have changed something. I couldn't save him, so he kept on hurting. Hurt people hurt, they say. He chose himself to hurt. And how the fuck do you save someone from themselves?