The Final Page

I inhale deeply, trying to match my breaths to his own. His are steady, calm, consistent, while I hold my breath enough for my chest to hurt. Let it go…let it go…but I can’t. If I do, I’ll lose everything. Every good, whole, beautiful thing inside me will float away with all the shards of my broken soul.

I close my eyes, but a tear rolls down my cheek and onto his chest, soaking his black shirt. One tear leads to two, and they must weigh the equivalent of anchors because they wake him. When he reaches up and puts a warm hand on my arm, my lungs collapse. I let my breath go, and everything inside me breaks. I squeeze him tighter and grab a fist of his shirt as my steady breathing becomes an earthquake of sobs.

“Hey, don’t cry,” he whispers, his voice raspy with sleep. He moves his arm up so he can hold me tightly, his lips on my head, as he plants several tender kisses there. They don’t fix anything; it hurts…it hurts…my chest, my stomach, my head, my lungs…I can’t do this…I can’t do this…

“We’ll be okay,” he says after planting another kiss on my head. “We’ve got this.”

He’s right. I do believe him. We can do this, we will get through this. 

I open my eyes again and wipe my tears with my pink cardigan sleeve. How much makeup did I cry off this time? Did I lose my fake lashes with my tears? I blink several times and when nothing hangs in front of my eyes, I relax. Getting ready would’ve been for nothing this morning.

I push myself upright and look down at him on the bed. A stream of light from the hallway sneaks through the crack in the door and cuts across his shirt and my arm. He studies me with his gentle, brown eyes, and smiles. “Good morning.”

“Morning.” I yawn and look at my phone next to my thigh. It’s almost time. When I look back at him, I reach over and run my hand through his curly, dark hair. He grabs my hand and brings it to his lips, where he plants four kisses across my knuckles. Then he tugs me gently until I’m chest-to-chest with him. I close my eyes and kiss him.

I memorize this kiss because I know it’s a goodbye. I memorize the softness of his lips, the gentleness of his tongue intertwining with mine, the slow passion easing all my aches and pains for a moment. I rub his jawline with my thumb as I hold him closer to me, and his fingers grip my hair to hold me closer to him.

“I love you,” he whispers unwaveringly. He says it confidently, and when I open my eyes, he holds my gaze tightly. He thinks saying it that way will make me believe him.

I inhale a shaky breath. “I love you, too. Always.” 

For me, it will always be true. My love is nothing but genuine, like how we began. Nothing forced, nothing fake. For the first time, my heart overlooked all the holes in my chest and love flowed in and out. He’s my safety net, my comfort. A future without him feels bleak.

I still don’t understand how we ended up like this. How did it all go wrong? How could we begin so passionately, only to end over not one, but several betrayals?

It’s still dark outside but the sun will be up soon, so I push myself off the bed and put my boots on. It feels cold as December should, but it’s not cold enough for snow yet; my body just feels numb with him no longer beside me.

He follows me out of the bedroom as I grab my keys off the counter. My suitcase leans against the wall and I pause. He doesn’t say anything; just stands a foot away with his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t know what to say. I don’t know what to say. But everything hurts. I wonder if he feels a storm inside him, too.

Before I leave, I look up at him. He stands a foot taller than me, curly hair sticking up messily, bags under his eyes from the tears and lack of sleep. His lips remain a line as he studies my lips. 

“This feels a little backwards, doesn’t it?” I joke, but my tone falls flat. My keys jingle as I fidget with them.

“I feel like it’s been backwards since the beginning,” he says, and I can’t tell if it’s meant to be a joke or another shot to the heart. It’s true, either way. “And you’re the one who made the decision…not me.”

“Stop.” I shake my head firmly and cross my arms. Tears well up in my eyes and the tightness in my chest returns. “I made it because you wouldn’t.”

“But like we’ve discussed time and time again, it can’t be any other way with us. Not after everything.”

 “If you really loved me, you would’ve chosen me.”

He looks at the door and back at me. If guilt could be tears, his eyes were full of them. He knows exactly what I mean, and he knows his initial actions were his decision. The worst part of all is how he knows how fucked up all of this is, yet he’s still not motivated to fix a single thing.

When I leave, he’s gonna go straight back to his old ways. As if I never existed.

When he doesn’t say anything, I grab my suitcase silently, brush my hair away from my neck, and exhale a heavy breath. I stare at his hands still in his pockets, and then at the black bracelet on his wrist, at the silver dots and lines in the middle of the band. In morse code, it reads, “I love you.” Hidden. Secret. Exactly how he wanted it to be. 

Another pang in my chest forces my eyes to meet his again.

Tell me this isn’t the end, I want to say. Tell me you love me enough to stay…tell me you’re happier with me…tell me you love me enough to find a way…tell me you won’t do it again…tell me I won’t get my heart broken a fourth time…tell me there won’t be another girl…another lie…another secret…

He says nothing; instead, he takes three steps forward and throws his arms around my waist. He locks me tight against him, his face in my neck and hair. Hot tears soak my shirt and I wrap my arms around his neck to hold him closer. I squeeze my own eyes shut and we stand like that for several minutes, a mess of tears, sobs, heartache, and pain. I can’t breathe again…everything hurts again…the hole in my chest burns…it obliterates all my love.

I wasn’t ready to stop loving you. And now I have to force myself in order to heal.

He was my best friend. My strongest love. Our summer was filled with drunken nights,  uncontrollable laughter, insane passion, intimate music festivals, and nothing but love in all the right places. We moved in together, grew our small family by two new fur babies, taught each other new skills, came back stronger after the first big betrayal.

But this is the end. How the hell did we end up here?