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Without him.
And I haven’t even gone anywhere yet.
I’m still here, standing before him, looking at his shoes, crying like a stupid girl who fell in love with him when she was ten.
I crumple the pages in my hands and look up.
What I see nearly forces me to my knees.
I see a boy, a tired but handsome boy, who’s staring at me like I’m his world. His jaw is set tight and rigid and his eyes, those dark, dark eyes are glassy and red-rimmed.
There’s such vulnerability in them that I feel like our roles have been reversed.
Like I’m a sharp object, a blade maybe, and he’s my fragile thing, a sheet made of gossamer silk.
I let the letter go in the light breeze that’s somehow blowing today.
He looks like he wants to say something else, but I stop him, again. Because apparently, I’m not done talking. “Will you do something for me?”
“Anything.”
I smile sadly, thinking about this magnificent but so cynical guy.
I think about all the times I encouraged him to read but he shut down. He would withdraw, become cagey like he was ashamed. I think about all the days he took care of his mom but kept it a secret.
I think about his anger, his hatred. His vengefulness.
“You know what your revenge is, Zach? It’s to live a happy life. A life free of them and their abuse. A life where you’re not ashamed or embarrassed about wanting more for yourself. A life where you take care of your mom or help a stranger on the street or pull out a kid from a hole. A life where you read a book and be proud about it. I want you to live that life, Zach, okay? Try to live that life for me. Because the alternative is just too painful for me to even comprehend.”
And then, I can’t take any more.
I have to leave or I’ll drive myself insane, standing here, watching him. So broken and screwed and from some kind of dream.
I jog to the driver’s side of the car, jump in and start it. I push down on the accelerator and peel out, all in one suspended breath.
I don’t look in the rearview mirror, not until I’m about to take a turn and I know he’ll disappear from my sight forever.
He’s standing there, where I left him.
His suit jacket is on the ground and his hands are limp on his sides, and he’s watching me hightail it out of there as his hair sways in the rare breeze.
After that last slice of a glance of him, there’s nothing.
There’s my life without him.
Just the thought of it makes me want to vomit. Though I know it’s also my phobia of the car.
I throw the car in park and fall out of it and retch on the sidewalk.
All the while thinking that I stupidly didn’t kiss him one last time.
Stupid, stupid girl.
I’m going after her.
Not because she’s mine but because I’m hers.
Because she knew that even before I knew it myself.
After she’s gone, I lunge for those papers that she let go in the slight wind. I pick them up from the street, wrinkled and almost torn, and fold them up, reverently, before pocketing them.
I’ve always known, right from the moment I saw her, that she’s beautiful. She’s magnificent with her rounded cheeks, soft chin and those soulful blue eyes. She’s soft in a way that I’ve always craved even when I crushed it with my actions.
But she’s never looked more beautiful than she did then, with sun sparkling down on her blue, wavy hair, reading her letter out loud to me.
She’s never looked braver, sweeter, more vulnerable and more like the girl I don’t deserve.
But I can’t leave her alone.
I won’t let her go out in the world, thinking she’s alone. That no one knows who she is or what her name is.
Her name is Blue and she’s the girl I love. Ever since I was twelve.
I rush back to the mansion, pack up my clothes. I bring her blue sandals from long ago, still caked with her dried blood, and her nightie.
I bound down the stairs and run to the servant’s wing. I find Nora in the staff room with probably every staff member there is at The Pleiades.
But that doesn’t deter me from barging in and declaring, “I’m leaving but I want you to call me if Mom’s condition gets worse, all right?”
I guess I’ve surprised everyone with my sudden entrance but I don’t have time for shock. When Nora just watches me with an open mouth, I address the room, generally. “My mom, she has cancer. Ovarian cancer. She doesn’t have a lot of time and, well, I came back because I wanted…” I swallow, words getting thick and clunky in my mouth. “I wanted to be with her in her last days.”
