snowfall

iv. couldn't

iv - couldn't.

She couldn't let go, even though she knew she had to.

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He wasn't going to come home. He wouldn't ever come home. She repeated it to herself so many times it eventually lost its meaning. But she didn't stop. She needed to get the message through to herself. But somewhere, deep down, she knew that she couldn't ever truly accept it. 

It had been two days since Jacob had left her one night. He had been cheating on her, that much she knew. Perhaps she should've confronted him. Her friends had told her to. She knew why she should've done it, it probably would have saved her all this pain. But she hadn't been able bring herself to do it. She'd walked up to him, only to back down again, asking if he'd seen her purse. And he'd shaken his head and smiled at her, and she couldn't remember anything other than that smile and how much she loved it. 

He hadn't loved her. She'd known that ever since he'd stopped smiling at her. He'd used to smile many times a day, but slowly it had diminished to once a day, then once a week, then once a month. The last time he had smiled at her was on her birthday as he gave her a present. And even then it was a weak one, a fake one, formed at the lips and not in the heart. He had looked at her without seeing her, as if his mind were a thousand miles away. She had accepted the gift and had thought that he was probably thinking about that other girl. The girl that he loved more than her; the one she could never live up to.  

He'd stopped smiling at all in her presence. His smiles were reserved for sweet little children, adults he wanted to impress, and old little ladies that would bake him cookies just because they could. He saved his smiles for the special little things. At this point her friends had been begging her to give it up. "Just let him go!" they practically yelled. What they didn't understand was that she couldn't. She couldn't even if she tried, and she did try. Many times, every night. Every time she lost the courage and ended up making up ridiculous excuses. And anyway, she didn't blame him for not smiling. She wasn't anything special, why should he waste a smile on her? 

She'd been living in a world of denial. There had been a point when she thought he loved her, knew he loved her even. When he made her feel like the most special person in the world, and that there was no one better. She'd loved the feeling. She'd loved him.  

She just couldn't do everything she was supposed to do. She couldn't stop denying it, she couldn't let him go, she couldn't help hoping that he'd turn up at her door with a bouquet of roses or chocolates, or even nothing but that smile on his face and she would forget about everything she'd been thinking and wait to feel his love again. 

She wished she could continue loving him. 

But she couldn't. And now she was alone in a hollow house buried under snow waiting for someone who would never come.