Page 4 of Breathing Wisteria
Taking a deep breath, I do my best to steady my hands and I slowly remove the lid. Lying on top is the framed photograph that sat on my bedside table for almost two years. I’m wearing a gorgeous pink dress with a long, ruffled skirt. If I close my eyes, I can still feel the soft material tickling my ankles.
I tripped over that damn thing so many times and very nearly ended the night with a sprained ankle. Plus, it clashed wildly with my bright red hair, but I couldn’t have cared less. I loved that dress so damn much and the boy staring down at me in the photograph seemed to agree.
Although, if I recall he was just as eager to get it off me as he was to admire it on.
I reach up and scrub a hand over my nose which is developing the unmistakable tingle of oncoming tears. Christ, I must be getting sappy in my old age, I normally last longer than this.
Sliding my eyes back to the photo, I take in the tall, built guy next to me, his intense brown eyes glued to me as I grin at the camera. Full lips that so rarely lifted into anything more than a dirty smirk, are curled up into a smile so big, it almost rivals my own.
He towers over me, and I remember the sense of safety that used to overwhelm me every time his arm slid around my shoulders and he would pull me in, close to his body. The sensation of his calloused fingers on my skin when they would inevitably start teasing along the curve of my neck.
He was my home. Wherever he was, that was where I was supposed to be.
Where I wanted to be.
Until I didn’t.
Sighing, I shove the picture back into the box, aggressively.
Flynn. Fucking. Maguire.
One of the biggest singer-songwriters in the music industry is my ex. My first love. The man I stupidly thought I would spend the rest of my life with.
Now, as the song says, he’s just somebody I used to know. Somebody who is impossible to escape, no matter how hard I try. His face appears on my Facebook feed incessantly, in magazines, on television.
Don’t even get me started on his music. It’s everywhere. So many songs that he wrote when we were together, and I’m immediately propelled back in time, remembering the way his voice would deepen when he had an idea that he was passionate about. The way he would get so lost in creating he would forget to do simple things, like, you know, eat.
Biting down hard on my lip, I dive back in, sorting my way through piles of random snapshots, corny love notes and lyrics scrawled in his god-awful writing.
The pain of missing him is savage, intensifying as each memory washes over me, and only when I notice the wet heat on my face, do I realize that my tears have finally fallen.
I allow myself to feel this so rarely and this is exactly why. It’s too much. Too much pain, too much regret.
Too much everything.
I begin to gently place everything back in the box when my eye catches on the corner of a picture sticking out of an envelope. Suddenly I miss the pain of only moments before, because this agony right here? It is the soul-crushing, life-altering kind.
Pain that changes you into a person you no longer recognize.
Dropping everything in my hands, I pull the photo out of the yellowing envelope and lock onto the grainy black and white picture.
My chest heaves, my eyes burn, and my throat feels as though it’s closing up as that tiny image reduces me to a violent vortex of grief.
Quickly stuffing the photo back into the box, I dump everything else on top of it and replace the lid, wishing desperately it was that easy to hide my pain away. I lean down and shove the evidence of my life gone so wrong under the bed, before giving in to the cleansing sobs that are fighting to escape.
Reaching over to my purse that is still lying on the bed, I pull out my cell phone and manage to calm myself so I’m only a snotty, hiccupping mess, rather than a snotty, sobbing one.
Unlocking my screen, I search through my contacts and pull up the name I should have called a long time ago.
With a shaking finger I press the call button, take a deep breath, and wait for the call to connect.
