Page 59 of The Truth About Love

So, I just nod, because I’d be lying if I said yes.

The nurse leaves without another word and I sag back into the hospital bed, desperately trying not to imagine the confusion and pain on Auden’s face when he’s told that I don’t want to see him. My eyes burn at the image.

He won’t understand.

But I guess, he doesn’t need to.

Setting him free is the best thing I could ever do for him.

“He deserves better, Summer,” Winter whispers into the silence.

I lay back and turn my face to the side, hiding myself away as I finally let the tears fall. “I know, that’s why I have to do this.”

She says nothing and I’m grateful. I’m not strong enough to defend my decision or even open my mouth to speak another word.

All I can do is lay in the jagged pieces of my broken heart, grieving the love I never thought I’d have and mourning the loss of the boy who gave it to me.

I never planned for us to end. If only I could have stayed that happy, carefree girl I was at the start of the year. If only the monsters would have stayed away so I could keep him for the rest of my life.

But I guess life just doesn’t work like that.

I know that Auden will eventually move on. He might struggle for a while, but one morning he’ll wake up and realise the sun is still shining, the sky is still blue and happiness is still possible. He’ll find someone new and fall in love again.

In fact, I hope he does.

Even though I never will.

I hope his life is filled with sunshine and blue skies and bright smiles. I hope the girl he meets can give him everything I never could. That she’ll make him laugh instead of cry, that she’ll hold him when he’s sad and lift him up when he needs her to. I could never do that for him. And maybe one day, she’ll even give him a family. The children will get their blue eyes and dimples from their father and be just as staggeringly beautiful as him.

And Auden will be happy without me.

But that’s okay.

Because if I’ve learnt anything from this it’s that sometimes to truly love someone you have to let them go.

PART II

Five years later

Chapter Fifteen

Auden

The cursor blinks at me from the blank page I’ve been staring at for the last two hours. It taunts me, mocks me with its relentless, unhurried flickering, making me want to drive my fist through the computer screen and render it unblinkable forever.

Your creative writing professor was right,it says.

I scrunch my eyes shut, shake my head to silence the imaginary voice and stretch my fingers out over the keyboard. If I can just get down a hundred words, today won’t be yet another wasted day.

The cursor blinks.

My brain echoes with the absence of ideas.

Fine.

I’ll settle for one sentence, one word even, I just needsomethingother than “Chapter One” to take up some of the empty space on the document.

How can you call yourself a writer when you’re not even able to write?

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