For making me believe in forever, only to leave me stranded in the wreckage of it. For making me love her so damn much that even now, even after she stood in front of me and shattered my fucking heart…I still can’t stop, I still love her.
No matter how much time passes, no matter how much I try to push her out of my head, she’s still everywhere. She’s in my car, in the way my hand instinctively reaches for hers at stoplights before I realize she’s not there.
She’s in my apartment, in the blanket she always curled up with, still bunched up in the corner of the couch, untouched since the last time she was here. I should fold it, I should put it away, but I don’t, because that would make it real, that would mean she’s not coming back.
She’s the way I still turn to tell her things, only to be met with silence. She’s the way I still hear her laugh even when there’s no one around, it happens when I’m least expecting it. In the shower, where she used to press her cold feet against my legs, laughing when I jerked away.
In the grocery store, when I reached for the snacks she always made me buy but never finished. In my own goddamn reflection, where I see the man she used to love, except now he looks hollowed out, like he’s just barely keeping himself together.
She’s in my fucking bones. Because Mariana Vargas has never just been someone I love; she’s been a part of me. Now, I’m stuck inside a life that still has space for her, still makes room for her, still fucking belongs to her.
And what fucking sucks is that no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much it hollows me out, I don’t want to let it go. If I stop reaching for her, stop seeing her in the spaces between silence, stop aching for her…it means she’s really gone.
The night stretches long and unforgiving, I can’t sleep. I haven’t been able to sleep for weeks, but tonight is different, tonight, it’s worse. I lie on my back, staring at the ceiling, my breathing uneven, my body heavy with exhaustion that refuses to pull me under. The air in this house is stale, unmoving, thick with the scent of something missing. Her.
I squeeze my eyes shut, fists clenching, breath stuttering as I fight against the sharp, sinking feeling in my chest. The one that says I did this to myself, the one that says I had everything and I let it slip through my fingers.
I reach blindly toward the nightstand, my hand closing around my phone before my mind can catch up. I know what I’m about to do, and I don’t stop myself.
Her name is still pinned at the top of my call log…Mariana. I hover over it, my thumb pressing against the screen so lightly that it doesn’t register the touch.
I could just call her…the ache in my chest deepens, turning sharp, slicing through bone, because I know she won’t answer. She made that clear, she doesn’t want me. The thought makes my throat close up, my breathing unsteady.
I shift my grip, my knuckles going white around the phone. My pulse is in my ears, loud, thudding, drowning out every rational thought telling me to put it down.
Because if I don’t call her, what do I do? If I don’t hear her voice, how do I survive the night?
My body starts shaking before I even realize it. Not the kind of tremor that comes from the cold—the kind that comes from something inside you breaking, something collapsing in on itself, something you can’t fix. I grit my teeth, squeezing the phone so fucking hard my hands go numb.
Just call her.
Just call her.
Just…I exhale sharply and throw my phone across the room. It hits the wall, a sharp crack cutting through the silence before it drops to the floor.
Her name rings out, faint and hollow. "Hey, Seb." I freeze. The sound of her voice cuts through the silence like a blade. I can’t breathe.
I turn, my body moving before my mind catches up, my eyes locking onto my phone, the screen still illuminated from where I threw it. It’s playing something, something old, something I didn’t even remember existed. A voice memo…from her.
I stare at the screen, pulse hammering in my ears, hands shaking so bad I don’t think I could reach for it even if I wanted to. Then, she keeps speaking. "You’re probably still asleep, but I just wanted to say hi. No real reason. Just… I don’t know. I was thinking about you."
A sharp ache blooms in my chest, thick and suffocating, pressing against my ribs like something is caving in from the inside, because I remember this.
I remember this exact morning; it was a Sunday. I had barely opened my eyes when I saw her name on my phone, a voicememo waiting for me; I had smiled. I had smiled so fucking hard.
She knew I hated voice memos, but she also knew I loved them when they were from her. "Anyway, I know you hate voice memos, but I also know you’re probably smiling right now because you secretly love them when they’re from me."
My breath stutters out of me, uneven and sharp, because she had been right. Ihadsmiled. I had called her two minutes later, voice still rough with sleep, teasing her for leaving me messages when she could’ve just waited for me to wake up. She had laughed, I can still hear her laughing. "You sound grumpy," she had said.
"That’s because you woke me up, Mari."
"Liar," she laughed again. "You love that I woke you up."
She had been right, I had loved waking up to her. I had loved every stupid voice memo, every early morning call, every damn thing about the way she loved me.
Now, she’s gone. Now, I’m sitting alone in this apartment that still smells like her, still aches with the absence of her, still feels like it belongs to her. Now, I’m gripping my knees so hard my nails dig into my skin, fighting the sob that’s clawing its way up my throat.
"Okay, I’ll stop rambling. Just… call me when you wake up, okay? Love you."
