Inever wanted to know what life would be likeafterKnox. There was never supposed tobean after.
There’s a part of me that still doesn’t believe what happened. Everything was over in the blink of an eye. In some last-ditch effort to save face, I blocked out the trauma by disconnecting from my body. It was as if I was watching everything unfold from a bird’s-eye view.
I pride myself on being equipped to handle anything, you know? I have my calming tonics and my color-coordinated schedule planner and more patience than the greater population, but this is a fight I was destined to lose. The white flag of surrender is already at full mast.
I know Knox. I know he would never hurt me. He was lying to me that entire time. My brain was a pincushion for his cruel words, and he went stab-happy with every excuse in the book.
Even now, days after the wreckage, nausea still compresses in my belly. I trusted him with my heart, my body, myeverything. And instead of having that—albeit difficult—conversation with me about our future, he took it awaywithin thirty minutes. The worst part, though? I don’t hate him. I couldneverhate him.
Crying into my pillow late at night has become a part-time job, along with trying to talk my mother down from getting out the metaphorical pitchfork. I haven’t left my bed in days. I haven’t thought about my job or school or my friends. All of that seems so trivial now.
I subsist on Top Ramen when I’m forced to eat, and I caress my phone screen like a wartime widow reminiscing over pictures of her fallen husband. He seemed so happy with me. Why wasn’t he happy? The smile lines on his face have become long-forgotten, and my emotional blockade begins to shore up the longer I concern myself with the what-ifs.
The night of the tailgate, something happened after he got kicked out—something he won’t talk about. I just can’t prove it.
I never knew that loving someone could hurt so much. More than being hit by a fucking car, if you can believe it.
I’ll never know what it feels like to be held in his arms again; I’ll never get to laugh with him; I’ll never spend sleepless nights talking to him over the phone when my thoughts try to tangle around me like an illusory spiderweb.
I don’t think humans were made to withstand heartache. Physical pain, sure, but emotional? Even if we do heal, we never come back the same. Wrong. Broken. We’re a version of ourselves that had to adapt after the loss of our loved one.
I know it’s dramatic—and I know I’m delirious from only three hours of consecutive sleep—but I don’t want to live without Knox. I don’t think I can. He kept pursuing me even when I was horrible to him, because his moral compass pointed him to make things right. I won’t ever find another person like him.
The sky outside is still smeared in thick coats of desolate gray, and nightshade invades my nose before the first drop of rain falls, compromising the integrity of the already erodedground and trumpeting a haunting dirge through the crying clouds.
I pocket the urge to grieve, doing everything in my power to tamp down the tears as remorse rolls in like a heavy fog, just on the tail of nature’s melancholic percussion. Every atom in my body wants me to crawl on my hands and knees to Knox and beg for a second chance.
Beg to make things right.
Hassie bursts into my room without so much as a knock, barreling into me with a forceful bear hug that disorients my equilibrium. I can’t categorize her reason for visiting—in solidarity, in consolation, or just as a good-natured wellness check. All I know is that I should be grateful for her company.
And don’t get me wrong, I am, but…but I’m not fulfilled in the same way I would be if Knox was the one here instead. It’s a horrible thing to think. Fuck! I can’t get him out of my head. He’s like an aggregation of blood and grime underneath my fingernails, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t scrape him out of stained keratin.
“Oh, Staten. I’m so sorry,” my best friend whispers, squeezing me as if the comfort will outweigh the physical toll.
I don’t embrace her back, as much as I wish I had the extra energy to expend.
Every one of my senses are heightened, inflamed by pain and its four horsemen. I fixate on the way her shirt rubs against mine, how her smell is too floral, how her arms are slimmer and less warm.
I wasn’t prepared to entertain any guests, but I guess my mother got tired of seeing me waste away in my bed. I know that before Hassie pulls back, I have to tack on a smile and pretend like I’m okay. For her sake, not mine. People don’t know how to handle their own agony, much less their neighbor’s.
My cheeks cramp from the strain of a deceitful display, and I pretend like I can’t feel my heart breaking all over again in theconfines of my chest, barely beating to a passive stagnation. The only time I’m afforded silence is when somnolence mounts and my brain’s check engine light comes on.
Hassie rubs the length of my arms. “How are you doing? Shit, sorry. That’s—that’s a stupid question. You’re obviously not doing well.”
I relayed all the information to her over text. Not the best delivery, but a phone call was too personal at the time. Merit reached out to me too (guess word spread quickly throughout the team), but I didn’t want to complicate her relationship with Knox.
“I thought he was my person,” I mumble numbly, my tongue throbbing with all the words I wish I could’ve said to him.
Each passing minute is another minute I spend drowning at sea, waving my arms fruitlessly in the hopes that an outbound ship will stumble upon me. But I’m alone in this big, wide ocean, and I can only hold myself above water for so long.
“Oh, sweetheart. I know.”
My nerves crackle. “Was I just…was I just some pit stop for him? A blip on his relationship rap sheet?”
“I didn’t know him as well as you did, but it didn’t seem like that at all. He didn’t look at you like you were someone to lose,” she assures me, using the soft pads of her fingers to tamp the moisture underneath my eyes.
Ugh! Why couldn’t she just say that he’s a horrible, nasty person? The truth is, though, he isn’t. And he’ll never be the villain in my story.
