“Fuck you, Joe!”
He drags me back up and punches me in my face. I stare back at him. I don’t have any more fight in me.
“I saw the way she looks at you, Liam, the way she loves you, and it breaks my fucking heart because I love her, and she loves me, but she loves you so much more. So much more, bro. Don’t do this. She won’t survive. She won’t try to move on.”
My throat dries at his words imploring me. The irony coming from him… but it’s because he’s more familiar with the pain than anyone else. Her.
“I can’t lose her again—” I’m surrounded by fear, by my past, by too many things that I can’t continue loving someone this much. It burns, it hurts, it punctures my lungs.
“What if you don’t lose her? What if being with her hurts less than denying yourself what’s right in front of you?” Joe asks, his posture open to me, trying to make me see what I refuse to think about.
“How are you okay with any of this, Joe?” I scoff, wiping the blood from his punch at my mouth.
“Because I made the same mistake that you’re making right now. I let her go, except I did it to protect her, but you’re doing it to protect yourself. Either way, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. I know I already have.”
He walks away, shaking his head, and stops to look back around, straight at me, into me.
“Liam, I know it feels like she left you, but she didn’t. She risked it all to be with you, and you are denying her the one and only thing she was fighting for. Fight for her.”
He’s right, but I’m drowning.
Forty-Eight
Sara
The smell of warm croissants and the sound of laughter wake me up from a heartbreak that has sunk me deeper than any possible dark hole. Someone asked me who I was without my trauma, and I wish I knew.
It’s been a week that I’ve been back at my mother’s home, and it feels like her home… I’m just passing by reliving memories I don’t want to live through again and moving on to a future I can’t fathom.
When I make my way downstairs, Mom is giggling with who seems to be my new stepfather-to-be. He’s actually been reallynice, and seeing my mom happy again, her smile and living again… is beautiful. She’s survived so much, she deserves it.
Liam has taught me to overcome the pain and hurtful words from her that scarred me a lot deeper than I had ever known. It takes a special someone to see the serenity in the dark paths you had to take to survive, instead of judging you for them. He saw all of me and loved everything, but I ruined it all and It’s been almost impossible to breathe.
“Honey, you have mail. From Paris University,” my mom says when I stroll down the living room.
“Yes, I know. They accepted me,” I say back with the utmost lack of excitement.
Paris would only be an escape. At least I have one… a dark path I’d take to survive, once more.
I’d live through the hours of each passing day, praying for the pain to numb every offered second. I would become another passenger staring out of a train window, watching the same scenery blur pass day after day, waiting for when colors might sharpen again. But how could they when half of me would be missing? I’d merely be killing time, existing in this borrowed space between breaths, hoping somehow, somewhere, I might find my way back to the only person who ever made me feel complete, to the one whose soul recognized mine across lifetimes.
“Have you thought about—” my mom asks gently, handing a plate of food, but I push it away. “Sara, you’ve barely eaten, please. You look like you’re going to fade away.”
“I’m okay, thank you. No, I haven’t thought about anything yet.”
“Honey, I’m worried.”
“Don’t be. I’ve survived so far, what’s one more, right?” I give her a side smile that’s loaded with lies.
I head back to my room, unable to hold her gaze for too long, hoping sleep can engulf me as I forget how not to cry myself to sleep. I stared at the blade that had scarred my skin too many times, but I kept my promise to never hurt myself again, to someone who promised me they’d take the pain away for me.
Joe stopped by a few times to check on me, never stayed too long, and my mother hugged him. It stopped my heart for a cathartic minute. Liam won’t answer my calls, and I’ve stood confined between the aches he’s left me with, and respecting his wishes… to never see me again.
When I slip into bed with Liam’s t-shirt, I call Artemis again, but still no answer. I walked to her house a few days ago, my lost soul finding my way to her but when I turned the corner of her driveway, black smoke came into view, I ran up to have a better look and I saw her standing beneath the massive oak tree that dominates her backyard, her silhouette sharp against the orange flames that leapt from a metal trash can, burning what looked like men’s clothing into the hungry blaze.
Her movements were almost ritualistic as she watched each item curl and turn black. Damien hovered behind her, his leather jacket reflecting the firelight. I saw his uncertainty as he reached for her, his hands tentatively moving to encircle her waist like an attempt at comfort, but she violently shoved his hands away, and I saw a glimpse of her enraged, crying face. I took a step backward. I knew that if there was a time not to interrupt, it would be then.
So, with too much weighing on me, I let sleep soothe me of my living nightmares, just to dream new ones.
