The thought unspooled itself, wrapping around my heart with barbed wire. I could not remember the last time I had woken up to someone staying.
I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling, let my vision blur until the stippled white tiles melted into nothing. The ache was exquisite, a needle threaded through flesh and straight into the heart.
In that moment, I hated him for leaving. I hated myself for needing him at all. I was a child, returned to a primal state. Abandoned, wanting, empty. I had always known this was how it would end.
All my life, I was the one left behind. Everybody disappearing into the fog while I stood rooted, screaming for them to come back.
This, I thought, is what it means to be me: Always the one awake in the silence, always the one to carry grief in her heart.
There was no one to hold me together now. No mother, no father, no sister. The last arms to ever reach for me had vanished with the dawn, as if warmth was a temporary loan I was destined to default on.
My reflection in the window startled me. A hollowed girl, eyes ringed in bruise-colored shadow, lips bitten raw. I looked haunted, and I was.
Every leaving replayed itself in my thoughts, a film reel of departures.
My father: a slammed car door, the thunder of his boots on the porch, his voice raised not in goodbye but in final, choking defeat. My sister: a grievous evening, her cold body, the closet hollowed out, a voicemail that still sits in my phone. My mother: a years-long fade, her body present but spirit elsewhere, always elsewhere, until the phone call from the sheriff made the absence final.
Even Caiden, who haunted my waking hours and patrolled the borders of my dreams, was gone. I should have expected it. I did expect it. But the hollowness of that particular absence still managed to slice through me.
Always disappointed, always alone.
21
CAIDEN
The need toprotect Amelia overpowered me until I could hardly resist it.
All those years of watching her suffer and struggle, standing by on the sidelines, and even being the cause of her suffering, had caught up to me.
I fucking hated myself for it, how I treated her, how my father controlled me to hate her.
All this time, I could have been happy if I had just followed my heart. We could have grown up as friends and eventually lovers.
Her sister would still be alive.
I remember how I liked her and how liking her drove me to hate her.
Those moments last night when I couldn’t find her nearly drove me to insanity. I realized that I didn’t want to leave her alone again and that I couldn’t lose her.
The Caiden buried inside of me had crawled back into the light, the one who fucking yearned for her. He took hold of me and said:
Don’t let her go. This is your second chance. Chase our happy ending, for me.
The therapist, who sat in front of me, tapped her pen on her notebook thoughtfully. “So, you are thinking about going back to your hometown?”
I leaned backward, crossing my arms over my chest. “I think so. Amelia needs to go back because her mom died. I wasn’t going to go, but she asked me to, and I think I probably should?”
She nodded along. “Why do you think that?”
Sighing, I recalled last night’s events. “Amelia, she’s struggling. She’s strong, don’t get me wrong, but I think she hit her limit with pain. She’s vulnerable right now, and somebody needs to be with her.”
“And that somebody is you?” She echoed, challenging me to answer my own doubts.
“Yes. I know her best. I know her history, and I lived a similar life with my alcoholic father.” Shame crawled over my skin. “I need to redeem myself for all the shitty things I did to her.”
The therapist looked at me with sincerity. “Redeeming yourself by being nice to her may help the guilt, but for true healing, it comes from deep within. Remember what I said about your core self, how feelings you have now stem from your trauma and inner child wounds.”
“How do I do that?” I whispered helplessly.
