Work Text:
When I close my eyes it feels like I’m falling, as if the floor beneath me opens up and sends me soaring into an infinite black space, over and over. It makes me think about how things are without her, how everything feels empty, and how I have no ground to stand on.
I left and she stayed and I know I’m the reason why I feel this way, but I can’t stop playing the scenario in my mind and I can’t stop telling myself that it’s her fault when all I ever want is to blame myself. I wanted her to come with me, but the logical part of my brain fought me tooth and nail on how even asking her to pause her life just because I couldn’t stand to be without her was inconceivably selfish.
I was packing to leave and she said things wouldn’t be the same if I went through with it, and it seemed so ironic that in the very same instance, a house I’d built of Lego dropped from my hands and smashed into a million tiny pieces. The second she said we wouldn’t last, my heart shattered with the tiny plastic bricks and dispersed along the floor between us.
Maybe I’m bitter because I know what I want out of life and what I have to do and sacrifice to get it. Maybe it hurts so much worse than it should because I can’t stop thinking about how soft her hair is, or how green her eyes are in the summertime. Maybe it burns because when I sat and thought about it, it was as if our entire relationship was like a flickering candle, fading in and out over a long period of time.
I spend a lot of my day walking. Walking from a bus to a street corner, from that street corner to another bus, and that bus to a gig. My feet lead the way, and when I find myself alone and wandering around, every face I see is the one I miss the most. I swore I saw her before a small gig I played in a mall. It wasn’t until I hopped on the escalator up to the second floor, my guitar case hanging from my left hand while my right clutched the rail when I saw her.
I blinked twice, seeing her face in a girl I knew wasn’t her. My eyes were deceiving me, and as hard as it was for me to divert them, I couldn’t. She was with a group of friends, laughing while she tucked her dark hair behind her ear, and a wave of heat rose to my cheeks when I saw those green eyes staring back at me.
“Alice-” I trailed, catching myself about to address the girl who wasn’t her.
I go through a pattern where everyone reminds me of her and with each different face I try to remind myself that it isn’t. As much as it might feel like I won’t ever find anyone as amazing as she is, I know better than to believe it. Sometimes being alone is the best and worst thing, but on days where I’m stuck with nowhere to sleep or no one to talk to, I want her. I miss her more than anything, and I keep telling myself that someday I’ll find someone who suits me as well as she did.
My dad told me that once I moved away it might help ease the pain of not having her there, but it just seemed to make it worse. On a particularly lonely night, I missed the only scheduled bus and had to spend the night with my back against a cold brick wall, and with my phone in my hand my thumb hovered over her name.
Again and again my mind kept telling me to just leave it be and forget about her, but it was so hard to try to move on from something that didn’t seem to have a solid ending. The more I thought about how it all ended, the more I realize that we hardly ever tried to think in the long run. I’d bring up that I wanted to leave and she would change the subject, or distract me with her lips on mine.
When we were together, we were inseparable. I was hers and she was mine and everything in between. I remember once sitting on her sofa when we decided to skip class, still in hoodies that smelled of the bonfire the night before. My eyes were heavy while I rested my chin against the top of her head, the rest of her tucked safely under my arm and in the back of my mind I feared how each of us would be without each other. I wanted to keep her safe. It was easy then sitting on the sofa to promise that I could keep her safe, that I could shelter her from anything and everything negative. But on a day where the sky lacked any color and she was tucked safe inside my hoodie, she cried. I pulled her close and said things would be okay, and even though I meant it, we both knew I couldn’t protect her if wasn’t there.
When it came to that point where I did need to leave, she broke it off before we even had the chance to talk it through. She wiped the tears on the back of her hand while I stood above the shattered Lego pieces, our relationship broken just the same as the plastic house I’d built so carefully. I watched her turn and disappear out the door and with the air still between us, she passed over the threshold as if she’d done it a thousand times before. I felt vacant, shattered, as if she’d reached in my chest and cracked every rib when her words tore my heart out.
Her scent is still on my pillows and tangled in the bedsheets and no matter how many times I wash the fabric it still lingers, wedged up my nose as if it’s meant to be there. The nights I’m alone on buses and fighting to stay awake I feel the pads of her fingers trailing over my skin, only realizing when I come to how much it isn’t comforting. It isn’t safe, it isn’t warm. It’s a constant reminder of what we had and what we don’t have anymore. It burns and it scorches and leaves me scarred, just like a sunburn.