Three Years Without Him

"If you're watching this, I'm dead."

The moment those words leave his lips you fall to your knees, a broken sob escaping your mouth as tears streamed down your face recklessly, your breathing unsteady. You gasped for air, but knew you would fail to inhale any, because he was your air.

And now, he's gone.

He's gone forever and there's nothing you can do to change that.

For the first year you're all over the place. Your family puts you in a psyche ward and expects it to help, but it only makes you feel even more alone, nobody else in the place wanting to socialise with you. You're stuck with the doctors and eventually, your only friend is the medication you're prescribed. It numbs you, and you like that. You like that for what isn't long enough you feel like you can breathe without it straining your lungs, that you don't have to remember or think for a while.

It's unhealthy, but everybody copes differently, you tell yourself, trying to normalise what could damage your life permanently.

And it does for a short while. But soon you see how everybody looks at you. What was once sadness and sympathy is now a pitiful, judgemental stare.

You tell yourself this road isn't what he would've wanted for you, so you change it. You try something else. Only to realise that there is nothing else.

Your second year without him derails your life completely, putting you on completely new tracks that you learn to get used to.

"What the fuck do I do?" You sigh, inhaling the cancer-stick, keeping the smoke in your rotting lungs until it burns, because you feel like you deserve it.

"My Donny took up fightin'?" Your neighbour, an old woman who has a thick, heavy southern accent and is way more intimidating than she looks suggests, and you wonder how that would help with the sadness that dulls your heart even more as the days drag on.

"I guess," you say, and for some reason, that snaps something inside of you.

Turning your unhappiness into rage quickly becomes your default.

"Slow down! Breathe with each punch, yes?" Your trainer, a middle-aged man with dark skin and a comforting atmosphere around him encourages you, and you step aside to let him demonstrate. The look of concentration on his face copies onto your own and you take a deep breath, moving back in front of the hanging punching bag when he steps away. Quick breaths echo in your ears and you feel yourself feeling less worked up, more in control of yourself and your surroundings. Something you haven't felt in almost a year.

It's the first breath of fresh air you've had since he left you. Since he left everyone.

Selfish fucking bastard. That's all he is to you now, and you feel like if he somehow, ever came back, the first thing you'd do is kick the shit out of him, because why would someone do that?

But you know that's impossible, and whilst that makes you ache all over, you also feel relieved about it. You're glad that's never going to change and that you're not stuck clinging onto false hope about him coming back.

"That's more like it, good. Control your anger, don't let it control you."

And part of that quote sticks with you.

Control your emotions and actions, don't let them control you. Don't give into impulse. There's a logical explanation for everything, you just need to be patient.

"Why'd you do it?"

On the third year you finally have the courage to visit his grave whenever. You also don't cry as much anymore, now numb to what was once your only feeling.

"You could've at least told me, you know?" And your voice sounds broken, whiny, and you hate it. Hate that even after everything he caused you, he still makes you feel like this. But you know you can't blame him, and you don't, because it was what he wanted. "We were here for you, you piece of shit."

And the tears flow. They flow the same way they did the day you found out, and you can't stand it.

"Should've fuckin' told me," you mumble angrily to yourself, tears of frustration rolling down your cheeks that are tinted pink due to the cold weather. It's December and you hate it because it was his favourite month. Christmas was his favourite and what was once a magical holiday is now one of the worst days of the year because everything reminds you of him.

Stupid, stupid, stupid holidays. Merry Christmas doesn't exist anymore.

"Third Christmas day without you, asshole," you say, sat beside his grave, the ground covered in a sheet of white snow that will definitely make your clothes damp. "Three years and I still thought about buying you something," you chuckle bitterly, gulping, not wanting to cry anymore. You're tired of it.

The one-sided chat is interrupted when you hear the faint, familiar sound of snow crunching beneath someone's boots and stand up, afraid they'll hear your vulnerable words and silently judge you. You don't think you can deal with that right now.

As you turn to leave, a familiar, lean body blocks your path, causing you to bump into the person, and something inside of you tells you to not look up, don't you dare fucking look up-

And there he is. Stood in front of you like a fucking goon, a wide, impossibly warm smile taking up half of his stupid face and you don't know what to feel.

His face falls and you guess your expression isn't good, and as he speaks, all you hear is white noise, because why is he back? How is he back? Your only sense of security and the only thing you were once completely sure of has now been shattered, and you feel lost. Like you're stuck in a forest looking for an escape but the trees go on for what seems like forever, but you're actually stuck in one spot, everything feeling like an illusion.

The last thing you hear as the world around you fades to black is him calling your name, voice desperate and almost as broken as yours.

He deserves to know your pain, you decide, giving into the darkness, already dreading the moment you wake up.

You hope he won't be there when you do.