Page 4 of Leah

She’s gone.

I paced in circles, breaths ragged—

When I awoke like this in the night, when my head was still foggy and fucked, there was no logic to my maddening thoughts.

Anything was possible in those moments.

“I could go back,” I whispered. “I could turn back time…”

It felt plausible.

I could put my hand out and wind back time like I was winding back a clock. I could walk into this wall like a door and come out the other side and see her sitting on her porch, looking lonely.

“What would I tell her?” I wondered.

If I could go back, and she saw a stranger walking up to her, the man that would ultimately be the reason for her heartbreak—

What would I tell her?

Would I kneel before her like I was doing now in the darkness? Would I put my hand out for her to take, or would I ward her off and say, “Leave the neighbour boy alone. Stop following him. You deserve better, Leah. You’re a fucking ray of sunshine, and you’ve got the world at your feet, sweet girl. Don’t let the bad tear you apart. Don’t be like him, theneighbour boy, who’s still hiding from his demons like a coward. I’m a coward, Leah.”

Tears fell from my eyes as I continued to reach my hand out into the darkness of whatever place I was in right now. A place that wasn’t home, didn’t feel like home because she wasn’t here, and I—

“I miss you,” I whispered, choked up because time was passing.

How many weeks had gone by?

The silence was a misery of its own, and I was a quaking fucking mess, consumed with regret and remorse.

She was shutting me out.

I hadn’t heard a word from her, didn’t know what was happening in her corner of the world, and this was how it was supposed to be.

Wind back the clock…

If I could go back, it wouldn’t be as this man here before me now.

If I could go back, I would be that boy she wanted fiercely, and I—

I collapsed to the ground, burying my head into the floor, pretending for a second that she had taken the hand of that boy I used to be. That when she smiled at me, I smiled back, and I wasn’t scared.

I hummed through my pain, crawling back to my room, but not to my bed. I grabbed my notebook and pen from the nightstand. I sat with my back against the wall, using my teeth to tear the cap of the pen off and spitting it on the floor beside me.

I hummed a melody in my pain, hearing the words in my head—

“I miss you…” I sang softly. “I miss my soulmate…”

If I could express myself through my music, maybe she would hear the songs and know they’re about her, and us, and maybe…

Maybe she’d come back to me, or I’d go back to her, and this would all have been a mistake that we could fix.

Wishful thinking, I knew, as I sat there, drowning in a hope that I had squashed in her.

I haddestroyedher.

You don't get to go back to the things you've ruined.

I didn't deserve her.

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