What if?

The rain falls all around us. Except in the small circle underneath the umbrella above our heads. River fidgets with the handle before looking at me. “You said you had something to tell me?” He asks.

Don't say it. Don't say it. You don't mean it. You're going to regret it.

“I can do this anymore,” I whisper.. 

“Can't do what?” They ask even though they know damn well what im talking about.

“It hurts too much. See you with him. It hurts. I don't know if I can do this.”

“You can't make me choose.” there were tears in their eyes. “I love you both equally.”

“I know you do. And I'm not making you choose.” I let go of the umbrella and stepped out into the rain. “I'm letting you have him.”

And then I run and I can’t tell whats the rain and whats my tears.

It's for the best.. It's for the best.

It's going to hurt less.. I promise..

You don't have to be third-wheeling with your own boyfriend when he doesn't hold your hand but someone else's. You don't have to look away when he gives Nat that look he always gives you the one that makes you feel like you're the most special person in the world. Don't have to flinch when he touches you because you don't want his hands on you because it just feels dirty because he had just been touching Nat. You don't have to cry looking out the window at the two of them together wishing he asks you to hang out. All the pain is gonna be gone. You can find someone who cares as much as you do.

“It's what's best..” I mumble under my breath. I run down the cement, my shoes splashing muddy water on the cuffs of my jeans. I don't bother looking back because what's back there is something I can't ever have again. What’s back there is what I left behind.

I made the wrong decision.

How am I supposed to be in the same room as you and not be next to you? Not reach out for your hand, brush a strand of hair from your face and make you laugh. How am I supposed to exist in the same world as you, but not exist with you?

Who am I supposed to call when I'm happy? Who else is going to give me their full attention and let me rant?

Who do I go to when I'm sad? Who's going to hold me and wipe the tears from my eyes.

Who's going to make me happy?

River's words echo through my mind. “Even if you leave, that doesn’t mean that it can't happen again.”

He would take me back..

But why would he ever want me back? I left him. I can’t just ask him to make a space for me back in his life

And it wouldn’t be the same. Things have changed…

And the pain would still be there. I just left it for a while but when I came back. He’ll still be with Nat. And I would still be crying into my pillow.

Nothing has changed since I left him.

I just need to get him out of my mind and find someone else. There are so many people out there and I'm so young. I told myself this was never going to work out anyways high school sweethearts never do. I was expecting it.

That doesn't mean it hurts any less.

I need you back in my life.

You were my best friend before we were dating. You were the one I could turn to. It's so empty without you. You sit inside with Iza and Tyler and after lunch, Mia and Sasha go to talk with you and I pretend to be preoccupied. I talk to Lora and Laura. I pretend that I'm so absorbed in my texting and whatever I don't look at you. Don't look into your eyes, don't look at what I used to have and what I want desperately back.

We don’t talk in class, we're people who were close but now we're just strangers. I drive home with my mom and you drive home with yours, even though we live across the street.

I avoid the questions I get so constantly asked by my brother about why I'm not with you and why I won't come out and see your sisters.

I wave at them sadly because I love your sisters as much as I love my brother and wish I could give them a hug. But I don't want them to ask why I don't come over anymore. I don't want to explain that I left you. I just want to keep hugging them and tell them just because I'm not over doesn't mean I love them any less.

And when I hear heat waves playing from your bedroom window I try not to cry and I turn my music up louder. But even that doesn't push you out of my mind.

When I find your hoodies under my blankets under my dresser on the couch or in the back of the car I collect them and put them in a corner in my room and resist the urge to put one on and pretend that your arms are around me and that your whispering in my ear telling me that everything’s going to be okay.

I'll change your contact and resist the urge to text you and tell you how my day went. I won't call you. I'll read a book. I won't hang out with you on the weekends I'll hang out with Mia. I'll walk by myself in the halls and I'll take the bus home on Wednesdays. I'll take the photos of you off my bulletin board. I'll find something else to do with the presents I've already bought you. I'll put the things you gave me in the back of my closet.

And yet as hard as I try to get you out of my life and off my mind it doesn't work.

Because my mind and my heart know that it was the worst decision I've ever made and that if I had a chance to do it all over again I would be in your room holding you tightly instead of wishing I never let you go.