An angel and her demons.

19. The past

CHARLOTTES POV

It was bright. Too bright.

I blinked my eyes a few times until I realised where I was. I was on the beach, there was a figure sat facing the waves. I sat up and walked over towards them.

"Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different?" he spoke. His voice was music.

"Nate." I whispered and rested my head on his shoulders, savouring the familiar scent of apple and oak.

"Why wasn't I enough?" I whispered towards him, he turned his head and took my chin in his fingers making me look into his eyes. "You were always enough baby."

"If I were enough you wouldn't have left. You knew I loved you with all my being and it still wasn't enough. Why wasn't I enough." I looked in his eyes, they were glistening with tears.

"It was never about you Charlotte. I wasn't ok, I was fighting in a war with myself, you were my ammo, my supplies, my lifeline, my hope of survival. But even with that... I still lost." His eyebrows furrowed and he dropped my face to look back at the ocean.

"I guess we both lost." He looked back at me. "You didn't try. You barely fought. You gave up." His voice was filled with sadness.

"My life stopped the second yours did." I replied bluntly.

"My world started with your hello and ended with your goodbye." I watched as the waves peacefully splashed against the shore.

"Charlotte your world did not revolve around me. Your world revolved around you. You chose to believe it didn't because you were afraid, you are so strong and powerful, yet you gave up. Why did you give up?" he turned his head to look at me... I couldn't answer him, I didn't know why either.

In that moment I realized that no matter how hard I wished and tried - no one would ever be able to understand my mind. Not even myself...

"You don't know either." He whispered.

"Maybe I'm just like a broken glass. Shattered on the floor, forever broken... never to be put back together."

"You're not broken mi amor (my love) just chipped." He spoke softly. I missed the comfort he brought me.

"You need to fight; you have a second chance. Don't waste it. You know that the only person stopping you from changing your life is yourself and I know you feel like you can't live with the enemy you have built inside yourself. But you need to fight."

I shook my head... "can't I just stay with you. I don't want to leave you." I cried turning back to look at him.

"Come." He directed towards his chest, I shuffled over and lay on his chest. We sat in bliss watching the waves move.

"We will see each other again, but not for a long time. I want you to travel, to make friends, to find another love, to have children and a fat cat." Stroking my hair in rhythm with the waves hitting the sand.

"I don't want to do anything without you. I don't want to do it alone." I cried.

"We are born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship and we create the illusion for the moment we are not alone."

"Nate, all I have ever wanted to do since that night Is go home but that is so hard to do when your home is a person, and that person is dead. You are my home."

"And you mine. But we all move homes eventually and you will move and find beauty in your next one." He stroked my hair. "I love you Charlotte, but you must move on."

"Wake up baby. Fight. Live. Love. Survive. Thrive. The past can hurt, and it can't change, but the future is in your hands, so don't let it go just yet. Go chase your future." Certainty filled his voice.

"Just a few more moments and I promise I will fight and be happy. Not for you but for me."

I wish I were frozen in time so I could have been in that moment with him forever. But avail that was not what the universe wanted.

So, after everything I have been through, I decided to fight again, and win as I knew he was right, no matter how hard I tried, how much I fought, I can't bring him back, save him. But I can bring myself back and I save myself. I realized that this was how I let him go, forever.