The worst part is I miss her already. I miss her, knowing I will spend years not knowing whether she is still somewhere in this world, still breathing under a sky I won’t be able to see. And it’s my fault. All of it. I should have let her live. I should have let her have a life that doesn’t carry my shadow in it.
Fuck.
Now I understand what letting go means.
If you love someone, you come back. And I did.
If you love someone, you let them go. And she did.
They pull me away, tipping my head toward the car, and I feel nothing. I feel nothing because I can’t feel her. Their hands shove me into the back seat, while they slam the cuffs on my wrists.
The door slams and the car pulls away.
The world moves forward without her in it.
I press my forehead to the cold glass and make myself a promise I don’t know if I will ever be allowed to keep. If I get out. I will look for her. She is everything this world is worth fighting for.
The scariest part is that without her, I am the loneliest man in the world. Just a small, sad thing with nothing left to reach for.
All the gold in the world can’t buy back a life you lose. All the speed that blurs past you can’t buy the time you watch slip through your fingers. And in the end, you always lose. You lose people. You lose friends. You lose love.
And when there is nothing left to lose, you lose yourself.
She was my everything. And I lost my everything before I ever got the chance to truly live it with her.
Hold tight to what you love. Everything fades. Everything leaves. Until one day, you are just an empty shell standing where a life used to be.
Rides will end. Speed will slow. But a heart that breaks in a thousand pieces never really heals. It only hopes. It hopes it might one day see what it lost again.
They say we only love three times in a lifetime.
She was my first.
My second.
And my third.
And time is the one thing I don’t have anymore, but my love will always stay.
Epilogue
RUIN
Two months after
Icurl against the thin mattress on the floor. I can feel the cold running through my ribs, through my hip, and all the way towards every single place that still hurts. The room has no windows. And there is no way I can tell what time of the day it is. Day and night here simply never exist.
Ever since they took me, they just moved me around like I am their property.
For two months, the President has been telling me the same story. He sits in his chair and rolls the words around in his mouth about how he loved my mother. How he was supposed totake her away from Justin, how he knew Sofia was on the way when Justin stole her from him.
Fucking idiot.
My mother didn't want him. She had no spine. She said one thing and did another, and she stopped at nothing if it meant her ass being first. And if he thinks I will give him my sister, he is wrong. He will never know where Sofia is. Never.
Harper comes and goes. She is searching for answers, too. Her voice asks the same question over and over. Every time I tell her the truth, she tilts her head and calls me a liar.
They keep me here like I am nothing but a carton box on a shelf. Something to open when they want something from inside.
