'When all love does is break, what hope do we have?' They fell apart. They picked themselves up and tried to move on. They survived. And then they met yet again, a little older, yet foolish as ever, but perhaps it is this encounter that they needed, to bring them to a vastly different beginning.
Chapter 1 All Good Things Come to an End
"This was more so poison than love
What one might call a toxic love
But just as a drug addict might shout
He was too painful to live without"
I sipped the cold beer while staring out the window. The streetlights flickered as the occasional car raced through the otherwise empty roads as the rain drenched the pavement in a vengeful torrent.
I hate beer, but I clutched the bottle tighter.
How easy would it be for all of this to come to an end? Tracing my fingers along the droplets rolling down the glass to wherever gravity took them, I sighed. I knew this would start up again too.
Everything was turning to shit, and that included my brain.
///
The sweater I had pulled on was as grey as the sky turned out to be this morning. Brooding in soft rumbles, the chilly winds forced my hands to be buried in the depths of my jean pockets.
Walking down the bridge, my eyes lingered on the ripples on the surface of the water as a family of ducks waddled between the reeds on the side of the river. Getting to the other side, I turned to the left, as I did every morning, my feet in no hurry.
Most of the other stores were still closed, but as I pushed the doors open, the aroma of fresh coffee wafted through the air, as it did every morning, alongside the clinking of cups and saucers.
I could never get here earlier than Jemma, no matter how I tried.
"Morning Em!" I grimaced, I forgot that she called me that too, "The croissant and coffee are already in your office!"
"Thanks Jemma!" Grabbing the stack of letters on the counter, I started walking towards the office.
"Hey, are we all still on next Saturday? You and Will haven't confirmed yet, and Sally needs to book the table."
Oh right, dinner. The high school 'friends' reunion. Yay. I had been meaning to ask him about that, and now, well, I guess it's too late.
"Tell Sally we won't be making it, " taking a deep breath, I turned to Jemma, the edges of my lips trembling, "Will's gone, Jemma. He's gone."
Then, before she could say anything, the door was slammed shut and locked behind me, as I crumbled to the ground, the letters scattering all around me.
All of it had turned to shit. All of it.
///
It didn't even take five minutes. How could that be?
How could someone go from being the person that meant everything to you to a stranger in under five minutes?
Sipping the cold coffee, I tore open each envelope, stacking the letters into another one of those 'Monday piles'. That's probably how easy it was for him to walk out the door, not even a single glance in my direction, without even a shred of hesitation.
I was no longer Em, I was just Emily. Just the girl he once knew. So easily. I don't think I could ever understand.
The teardrops were threatening to spill, blurring my vision. For the first time in a very long time, the place I once called home wasn't home anymore.
And I don't know if I'll ever have a home again.
Running my finger along the edge of the letter opener lost in thought, the tip almost pierced my skin. I held my breath, and just for that moment------no. Flinging it on the table, I wrapped both my hands around the cup. I can't.
No matter what, I can't.
Look at me. I can't even make it through a single day.
///
Walking over the bridge again, the sky now the darkest shade of blue, I stared at murky yellow streaks of the streetlights reflecting on the water's surface. The evening felt even colder than before, a new kind of chill settling into my bones.
I guess this was how it was going to be from now on.
Jemma didn't ask too many questions, which I was grateful for, not that I could have answered them if she had asked. It's not like he gave me an explanation for tossing me aside.
I guess that's all the sum of all our moments meant to him in the end.
And he cleared his canvas, leaving me to hold the broken pieces. And like a fool, I cling to them for every breath.
Clinging to the Em that had already been destroyed and disposed.
Everything good has a catch, and I knew that. So why did I fool myself into thinking that he'd be any different?
Why?
///
Pulling the blanket around my waist, I leaned against the pillow, making myself comfortable on the dark grey couch we had picked out together around four years ago, as we slowly pieced this apartment together.
And that too would soon be just a distant memory made to be filed away, like I was.
If hell exists, this must be what it's like. Haunted by every memory of the person that cut you the deepest, and yet was so inextricably a part of you that losing him was losing a part of yourself, in every corner you turn. And even then, when you try to escape by closing your eyes, all you see is the flicker of him under the veil of eyelids.
My brain was working in overdrive, pulling image after image after image, in an almost accusatory tone, questioning, 'how dare you let him go?'
Yes. How dare I let him go? How dare I?
How dare I believe that for once, just once, someone would choose to stay?
A curse is what it is. It has to be. I wonder if any of me would be left once life decides to stop simply taking and taking and just taking from me. I've got nothing left to give.
The pitter-patter of the raindrops started up once again. I guess there'll be another downpour again tonight. As the lull of the rain drew my eyelids close, my eyes lingered on the gap between the door and the floor, the corridor light peeking through.
My ears were straining for them, the soft shuffle that made its way up those stairs, to this very door every day.
Except today.
He was actually gone.