Still Falling | ✓

03 | low

An idea flashed through my head, briefly, but lasting enough to pique my desire to explore it.

Maybe I could find it. I did leave it behind, after all...

Still in the new dress, I located the tiny storage room at the end of the hall and unlocked it. I scanned the many piles of boxes, desperate to recall where I'd left it. Instinct nudged me to one tucked in a corner. I pulled it out and riffled through stacks of my mom's novels, weathered and worn out, envelopes and notepads until I found it.

Right at the bottom, the black box that contained the diamond pendant. It had been here for two years, hidden from the light, it's magnificent beauty wasting away. Taking it off and leaving it behind had felt like a betrayal of him and everything we'd stood for. It was such a small object and yet, it meant so much to me.

I returned the large box and made my way back to my room, the black box in hand. I stood in front of the mirror as I opened it, revealing the pink gem encircled by smaller, white ones and I fell in love with it all over again.

You are so dumb, Amanda, I reminded myself.

I put in on. In a flash, it took my look to a hundred in an instant. I couldn't imagine this outfit without it. Or me.

You don't have to think of him everytime you wear it, you know. It is just a necklace. You have tons of them. Just. A. Necklace.

And maybe a declaration of love.

Adoration.

A promise of a future.

That never happened.

I groaned aloud and stormed to the kitchen, reaching straight for the bag bearing the wine Natalie had gifted me. I pulled the bottle out and hesitated when I heard something fall. I tipped the bag over and found a small card inside. I got it out and found a writing on it.

Amanda,

Finn was going to have his camera discarded and I found this inside. I thought you might want to have it.

Elliot

My breath caught in my throat. In that moment my legs were liquid, and my suddenly sweaty palms made me nearly loose my grip on the bottle of wine. The card was small, about half the size of my palm. There weren't many things I could think of that it could hold, except one thing associated with a camera. I tilted the card and a memory chip fell out. My throat grew tighter.

I knew what it contained, knew it would be a bad- no, scratch that, horrible- idea to do anything with it. But it appeared that I had a penchant for making horrible decisions, and so I found myself back in my bedroom, inserting the memory chip into my laptop. The system brought up it's contents, and I wasn't sure if I could breathe again.

His face. There was so many of it.

Asleep on his private jet. Eating dinner at his apartment. In his car, head tilted at the camera. On his balcony. In his kitchen, with baking flour in his hair. At a Subway. In his bed. In my bed. In front of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, locked in a kiss with me. That wasn't the only one that featured me. There were tons of them. A lot of us kissing, lying together, and some of me, alone.

In all of them, his piercing green eyes cut through me like a knife. A torrent of emotions hit me like a sledgehammer, making me wish I'd thrown away Elliot's card instead. I snapped my laptop shut, ejected the memory chip and dropped it into the trashcan by the door.

My head was reeling, chest tight with a million and one thoughts running through my head.

You ran away.