[ ʟosт ɪɴ sтɛʀɛo ]

[ my only one -- end ]

she's broken.

all of her feelings were poured out into that journal that she knew no one would read. she wrote letters to the one she still loved, yet she knew he would never read it. every word in it held so much emotion, and so much memories.

he would be a fool not to see those emotions, and he must be blind for not remembering.

she trusted him, and he played her.

he took advantage of the girl who loved him with all her life.

he didn't get it. it was like he reached the limit of how cold his heart could go. he was confused out of his mind. all of his thought were jumbled into one lump on mess in his head. all he could do was read the leather notebook the woman gave him a few weeks back.

the dates were written years back, but he felt as if she only wrote it a few days ago.

everything made him want to cry.

he really missed her, but he never knew how to.

he actually thought she was mad at him. that was the reason for everything.

it was already too late when he realized that she was hurting too.

he remembered the day they fell apart like it was etched deep into his heart. the cold look on her face was utterly heartbreaking. she looked at him like an insect.

he ran a hand through the ink of the letters and words written on it. her handwriting actually matured from shaky light to playful dark letters. the letters signified her moving on ever so slowly. everything made him regret not trying to keep in touch. he never thought of deleting her number, and he never threw away any of their cheesy love letters.

he was scared.

he was scared to break her again.

he was scared of himself.

he didn't want her to hurt, and he wanted to believe that pretending to move on was the only cure. seems like he was right.

the only hole to his plan: he was never able to move on.

while she was already happy with her new relationship, he was stuck there living in fear and anger at his parents.

he tried to believe that his parents were the reason why she got mad at him. their selfish decision to keep him reminded of how perfect their family seemed before she came into the picture.

but he thought the opposite.

as happy as their family might have seemed, they were never even talking much. but his parents got mad at every little imperfection. he figured a little rebellion wouldn't hurt.

so he used her.

at least that's what he thought at first.

until he fell in love with her.

the thing about love is, you can't climb out of it. you can only fall forever. it's more powerful than a black hole. and that's what made it so powerful.

he tried forcing himself to think all she was there for was to be a prop of rebellion against his parents. he forced it so much, she figured out and pushed him away.

it hurt him.

more than anything, but he accepted it.

he knew deep inside that he made the wrong decisions in life and he deserved everything that happened to him.

but he still loved her.

that was something he could never let go of.

that's why, ten years later, they were already in their mid-thirties, both of them living different lives, almost forgetting, they still thought of each other.

alice still held on to every little knick-knack he gave her.

and blake still kept that journal close to him even though he was already engaged to someone.

in the middle of the night, alice's phone would ring and she'd wonder who it's from. the line would always be silent and she'd hang up and go back to sleep.

it was enough for blake to live by. he knew where she was.

but that one night, he couldn't hold it in any longer.

she picked up and greeted in the same tired voice blake was used to.

he smiled and muttered silently the five words they swore on. twenty letters, six syllables, but a million memories.

"you are my only one."

she sang back in a choke. "yes, all i know."

then he hang up.