Nights are always the worst, because they hollow me out. Especially when I'm used to Ben breathing into my hair until Ifall asleep.
But nights here are also stunning. Kaleidoscopic.
Lu's new chandelier hangs overhead, stitched together from a thousand shards of stained glass like a prism, which means the room blooms in spinning fragments of pink, gold, and blue.
It paints the walls deceptively lovely. Makes me believe that broken things can be beautiful, too. That you can cry prettily.
I dig through old drawers: mugs, postcards, and paychecks I was supposed to cash years ago. Chaos as usual. Then journals.
I open that one I know I shouldn't.
It holds sketches of Ben, from the days when I was still naive about his proportions. Didn't have enough pencils for that.
It's not his body I linger on, though, but the whole page I filled with his eyes and his smile.
I study those details and almost laugh out of pain, wanting to reach back to the girl I was and tell her how harmless, how simple it all seemed when she was just sketching him. She had no idea what it meant to have him whole.
I close the journal before it breaks me, then sit back on the bed, slipping into that empty, faraway place until I realize—it's that bed.
The same one where, five years ago, Ben held me while I confessed the worst mistake of my life. Sobbed into him, told him I nearly died, and instead of turning away, he held me so tightly I actually believed I could still do something with my life.
Now, here I am again, dying, only slower this time.
It hurts way more when your heart's waiting for someone than when it stops beating.
The truth is that even through this marrow-deep ache, I love Ben, no matter what. I love him more than I ever loved myself.
But I also love myself more than I ever did because of how he loves me.
And right now, underneath it all, I can feelhim—I know he's hurting too.
I pick up my phone. The wallpaper he'd set with the picture of us is gone. Now my phone picks something random. Currently: just an endless dark ocean.
I find that app, hanging back a minute because I'm not sure how I'll handle seeing his dot beating on my screen, making me feel somewhat closer to him.
Then I open it, and my whole body turns into a garden of wings, trembling and wild. He's there.
Ben. Location: Zuckerberg Hospital.
He's at work.
I could put the phone down, pretend I never saw that dot, but I hate that thought—more than I hate where we are now.
That's the thing. No matter how hurt I am, I'll wish Ben happiness. Selflessly. Truthfully.
As his best friend, I'd tell him: it's alright, it's alright, even if it hurts like this, just know that I'll always wonder what you're doing and how you are in that random moment I think of you. You won't just pass through my mind.
I slump on the bed and pull the blanket over me.
Then my eyes betray me and I look at his beating icon onmy screen.
My hand shakes as I sob, pulling out a tissue after tissue that can't hold this kind of calamity.
He might have spent the week lying in bed with Lisa, whispering names into the dark, hating me for kicking him out without a chance to explain, and maybe it'd be fair.
The bed shakes under me, and I realize that Ben might not be the strong one now, but what if I can be? What if I could hold him this time? At least as his friend.
My thumb trembles above his name.
