“If only you knew,” he said. Wraped up in the sheets in a cold dark room, that’s when we always seemed to find time for revelations and feelings pouring out in the open.
         ”Knew what?” I asked, but he didn’t answer pretending to not have heard me. “Knew what?” I insisted.
         “The two weeks you disappeared, I was already falling…” and just like that, it felt as if a huge bus had hit me. You’d think I’d be thrilled, but I wasn’t. I had hurt the person I cared most for in the world, for being selfish and scared. I ran. That’s what I do best. When emotions get involved, I run instead of facing them. Two weeks was a short time, to me, but to him it was an eternity I can’t ever take back. I buried my face in his chest as I felt the tears welling up in my eyes, in hopes that he wouldn’t notice. Regret. He knew. He pulled me in closer, my legs tangled around his, his arms around me protectively, like two puzzle pieces fitting perfectly.
         ”It’s my fault, it’s my fault…” He whispered, reassuring me that it was all okay. But of course it wasn’t. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have been so self-absorbed?
         ”It doesn’t matter anymore, because we’re here now.” That’s what I hate and love about him most, he’s too close to perfect and I’m the little mess that I am. How could he forgive me when I couldn’t even forgive myself? About a million things were running around my mind at that moment. I love him, but he deserves better than me. I debated on whether I should tell him that.
         “I love you,” I muffled into his chest. He kissed my forehead.
         “I love you too,” 

         And then nothing else was needed to be said after that.

It was a cold and humid November night, the kind that I hated but all in all it didn’t really matter at the time. He stood in front of me, relaxed, weight on one foot. I was sitting on an empty chair adjacent to the big wooden doors which we often came in and out of for nights in the last few months. It had become familiar, once a strange and uncomfortable place, turned into just another hang-out night after night. He was looking at me, I was pretending not to notice. My gaze was focused on the cars by the side of the road, the trees, the yellow flickering street lamps that barely shed any light on the empty lots and dark roads. I pretended to be thinking, but there was nothing on my mind, really. There was only silence between us, which was frequent. Silence. We had both kinds. The uncomfortable and the comfortable kind. This one, would be the comfortable kind. 
       “You’ve big feet,” He said breaking the silence. I tore my gaze off whatever it was I was pretending to be looking at and turned my attention towards him. If what he wanted was my attention, he sure got it. I scoffed at the random remark. He opened his mouth again to talk.
       “And a big forehead…” I stared at him, not so much as shocked but more of amused.
       “I don’t have big feet, I was wearing shoes a size bigger than I should have been.” He didn’t reply.
       “You notice everything, don’t you?” I continue. He slightly sticks out his bottom lip and nods.
       “Yeah…”
       “Why?” I ask, curiosity dripping from my voice.
       “I don’t know… I just notice things about you.” I try to hide the fact that I might be blushing at this point. 
       “And you find the need to let me know all the things you notice about me?”
       “It’s not my fault you don’t notice things about me.” 
       ”Maybe I do and I just don’t say everything that comes into my mind.” I say in a matter-of-factly tone. I see curiosity slowly being etched into his face. I’m sure he was about to ask me soon, if I do notice things about him, and if I did, what were they. I had to say something before he had the chance to.
       “Besides… They say people with big foreheads mean they’re smarter—” an amused smirk appears on his lips but our conversation was cut short. The big wooden doors next to us opened, our friend calling us to come in. Their favorite tv show was about to start. 

We always stayed in the same place. The room had no real beds, just comfortable mattresses on the floor, each perfectly fit for two people. On TV was Man vs Food. Boys and their food. We were lying in bed, not touching, but close enough. It wasn’t even close to being PG. I was pretending to watch the man on TV take on a big pizza burger bacon thing, with the frequent distraction of checking social networking sites on my phone and his scent radiating off of him. I knew his scent so well, that’s how often I was so near him all the time. It was etched into my memory. Even when we weren’t together, I knew how he smelled. He smelled of fresh cologne and cigarettes. It didn’t smell as disgusting as I would think. I hated the smell of cigarettes but on him, it was, well, it easily became one of my favorite smells in the world. The scent of him. That was one of the things I noticed about him. I noticed, too, that his hair was always so shaggy like he just got out of bed, that he had a sort of funny lopsided walk that added to his appeal.
My train of thought was interrupted, my sight went dark and that’s when I realized that he probably got bored watching the show. He placed his army cap on my head, the flap in front completely covered half of my face. I lift it off a bit.
      “What was that for?”
      “It looks cute on you,” he says but then he quickly adds in a teasing tone,
“Plus it covers your big forehead.” My jaw drops as if I’m insulted. He laughs as I playfully shove him telling him to shut up. He pokes me at my side, causing me to jolt. I laugh, he laughs, I poke at him and he pokes at me. We have become the cliche tickle fight. Oh, god. We were no longer not PG. We were PG. When the tickle fight died down, we were closer to each other than we had been before that. He pulled down the army cap on my head once more, covering more than nearly half my face. He pinched my nose and touched my cheek.
     ”I like your forehead, your nose, your freckles…” He said. I fought the urge to smile. I completely forgot that we weren’t alone, that our friends were there next to us, that the TV was on and the man was now taking on a different kind of high calorie meal. No one else existed except him and me.
     “and I like your ridiculously big feet.” He finished. I gave a smile and a scoff at the same time. It worried me that he easily noticed so many things about me. I prayed to god he wouldn’t notice that, that night I decided that he would be a keeper, and all the teasing and bantering we did was something I could get used to.

It’s been a year since then. There’s no longer any teasing, no silly bantering, no cheesy little tickle fights. They have all been replaced by silence, once more. Although this time, it was neither the comfortable nor the uncomfortable silence. It was just that. Silence. I would be lying if I said I didn’t see it coming. Looking back now, all the good stuff had bad stuff lying in between. They were small, minuscule details, easily missed, easily blinded to midst all the happy things. It’s been a year, and although I don’t remember very much (my brain slowly erased him bit by bit), there are those random times I’m hurled back into the past, reliving the good things. Forget the bad things. It was the good things that matter the most. It was you, and me. It was, for a brief moment in time, everything we had hoped for it to be.

I wished for my nightmares to disappear in exchange for humble sleep, only for it to happen in reality. I’d rather wake up thinking I’m back in the past rather than face the memory of you, every waking moment, a nightmare, a fever I can’t sweat out. How much longer will I have to bear with this? Do you know that everywhere I go my eyes will search for you? Our hearts were our homes, yours has been vacant, mine has never been. It’s like I’m homesick for a place that no longer exists. Will it always be like this? Tomorrow? Next week? Next month? What about the years to come? The words we said still echo around in my head, just voices, but you’re not there, it’s just me on my own. How can it that I still mean every word and you don’t? It was unquestionable, but now all I have are doubts. Those 11:11 wishes we made on the cab ride home, they stopped coming true.

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I screamed, you screamed. Nothing made sense, neither of us are listening. It’s just a bunch of jumbled words clashing together like waves on rocks. We both took that leap of faith and here we are, naive from how it always usually ends. We knew. We both knew. We chose to ignore it. Isn’t that what we do best? Ignorance is bliss, they always say. Well, of course it is. It was like a car crash, you know it won’t end pretty but you can’t stop looking anyway. Was it even worth the ride? Yes. It is. Always. The ride flashed before my eyes, like how your life flashes before your eyes right before you die. Is that what it’s like? That’s what it’s probably like. “I don’t want to love you anymore.” It came out before I could even stop it. In an instant you stopped with the yelling, the arguing, the hurtful words. Were you listening to me all this time? Or was it just that specific sentence that stood out among the rest? You turned up the music as if to drown out the instant silence that filled the car and drove slower this time. We both stayed quiet as we entered a tunnel. Somehow I felt we’d make it out of here alive, after all, there was always that light at the end of the tunnel and once we’d be out we’d be okay again. But there wouldn’t be a light at the end, it was way past midnight and we were going no where. We emerged and I turned down the music. “Well, what did you wish for?” I asked. It was our routine, every time. But you didn’t answer. “Well, I wished for you to be happy.” I continued. You paused, contemplating whether you would respond…

 “I wished to be free.”

(Pre-fiction, Camie J.)

There you sat on the pavement, looking down at the ground while I was on a standstill in front of you. No other words were said. What’s done was done. There was nothing left to say. There was me, there was you, and there was the silence lulling between us. Thinking about it now, I should have said something. Anything. But I stood there doing absolutely nothing. You didn’t do anything either. I remember how I never felt sadness or anger or hurt, but instead I felt eerily calm, serene, relieved. I somehow knew I was still home, purposely blinding myself to the fact that in a few minutes it was time to leave. Temporarily or for good, I still don’t know. We quietly decided among ourselves that we weren’t going to do it this way. We talked, we smiled, we laughed, we joked around, we looked at each other speaking through only our eyes saying the things we never dared say out loud. I love you. I always have and I always will, but love is not enough, not now. I’m sorry. Please don’t forget me, don’t forget us. Of course I won’t, how could I? And then it was time to go. You pulled me in for an embrace. Time stopped. There was just me, there was just you, and there was the space between us instantly filled with just us being… Us. We were in our purest form, without all the malice, the betrayal, the hurt. For a moment we believed we could go back, but it was too late. We were way past the expiration date. You drove me home, we both stayed silent not braving to utter a single word. Fear took over me, emotions were spinning out of control, I felt nothing but panic. This would be the last time I’d ever really see you. I would bump into you again on a random day but on that day you wouldn’t be the you I’ve always known. You’ll be a stranger, just another familiar face in the crowd, but a stranger nonetheless. I braced myself for what was approaching. I turned, gave you a final kiss on the cheek not bothering to look into your eyes knowing I’d never have gotten out of that car if I had. And with all the courage I could muster, I walked away never daring to look back again. 

- (Fiction, Camie J.)