Page 127 of The Publicity Stunt
I met you at a strange time in my life. I was broken and sad and just exhausted from keeping everything bottled up inside. But that’s every fifteen-year-old, isn’t it? I was nothing special. I was a sad, ordinary girl who thought she wasn’t built for this world. All I wanted to do was disappear. But then I met you and realized I just wanted to be found.
You were a little broken too, I could tell. But it was a different kind of broken. A beautiful kind. A lonely kind. Maybe that’s why we clicked so well. Two kinds of broken trying to fix each other. I can’t explain it, but I think that night I fell in love with you. I know, I was just a kid. There’s no way I knew what love even was. But it didn’t matter to me back then. Sometimes you meet someone and you just know that on some level the two of you belong together. As friends or as family, or something entirely different.
Imagine my surprise when I found out we read the same kind of comics. It’s rare to find people who understand the things you love. It’s even rarer to find someone who loves the same things you love.
I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but when I first got into X-Men, I didn’t really like Rogue. She was an unsure and insecure teenager, and reminded me too much of myself. I didn’t like that. But slowly, my dislike turned into jealousy. What I would give to steal someone’s memories by touch. I hated my own.
It’s a grim reason to idolize a fictional character, but when something speaks to you, it just speaks to you.
The night I asked you to kiss me was the scariest night of my life. It didn’t help that you looked just as scared. But that night was everything to me. I had just kissed the boy I loved.
I wanted you to be my first kiss. My first everything.
I miss those kids.
I miss who we used to be.
I miss being in love with you.
For months now, I’ve been hoping things would get better between us. But I don’t think that’s possible anymore. Holding onto a past idea of us has been dragging me down into a sad and dark place, and I miss the sunlight.
After you stormed out tonight, I got a call from Holly. Something’s happened and I need to go home for a while. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but in all honesty, I don’t think I’m coming back at all. It hurts too much. Every time I look at you, I relive the accident. And I know you do too. I’m scared that one day, you’re going to wake up and stop loving me back. Don’t give me that look. It’s already started. You hardly ever want to be around me. And I don’t blame you. I don’t want to be around me either.
I’m not giving up on us. I’m simply letting go. I need to be there for my sister right now. I need to be around someone who doesn’t look at me like I’m something that needs to be fixed. I need to be around someone who doesn’t look at me with regret. More than anything, I need to be around someone who doesn’t remind me of what I’ve done. And the people I’ve hurt.
I’m sorry if I’m making this all about me again. I don’t mean to. But sometimes, I tend to, and for that I apologize.
Being in love with someone and loving someone are two very different things. So, please know that while I still love you—you’re my best friend and I’ll love you forever—I don’t think I’m in love with you anymore. I’m sorry if I’m breaking your heart. I don’t know if I am. Mine feels like it’s been broken forever. I hope that in time, you’ll forgive me.
By the time you read this, I’ll be on a flight to New York. I’ve taken all my meds with me. I promise to take them on time. I’m starting to cry again and I still have a lot to do before leaving so I’m going to stop writing now.
I don’t know how to say goodbye to you. I never thought I would. I’m leaving my ring behind. As much as I’d like to say, “I hope you find someone who deserves it more than I do,” I can’t. I hope that one day we’ll meet again, when we’re not so broken. Maybe one day we’ll be right for each other. Maybe.
But not today. Today we don’t work, and as much as I care for you, I can’t keep pretending we do.
Your friendship has meant the world to me, Hayden Parker. Don’t you ever forget that.
Thank you for saving me. But more than anything, thank you for always loving me. Please don’t think that I take that for granted. You’ve been so perfect and so patient through all of this. But there’s a heaviness in my heart that I can’t seem to get rid of.
So it’s goodbye for now, but maybe one day it won’t be.
I love you.
April.
ChapterTwenty-Nine
Present Day
APRIL
Divorce papers. Divorce papers? My fingers dig deeper into the edges as I hold on to them, stare into them, trying to make sense of it all.
This is—it can’t be true. It isn’t true. Of course not. It has to be a joke. A sick one, but a joke nonetheless. It can’t be.
Parker can’t be married. He would’ve told me. He would have.
The air seems to get thinner around me.
