Saving Kate

Leo + Kate

We didn't last, Cecilia and I. Everyone saw it coming, honestly so did I but I would enjoy it while I could. There was a frustration that would brim inside of me once in a while when I'd look at you, wrapped around Frank Waterhouse's waist because I wondered why you were the only one allowed to have your fun no matter how much it would lead to your demise. I envied your reckless, fun-loving behaviour; you were like a character in a book but I never could find the words to capture you.

I didn't see you much towards the end of the year and there hadn't been a time where emptiness had hurt so much like it did then. To live without you, seemed to be my own untold tragedy.

It was as if you had been purged from my life. The whole ordeal felt rather perverse. The fact that you didn't answer my calls or look me in the eye when we'd pass each other's windows made me think that I had done something wrong. I felt like Clyde, robbing banks without Bonnie by his side; none of it really had much meaning anymore when you weren't there. Something happened to you that night, I just wish you could have come to me. I was angry because I thought that our friendship was worth at least that much.

Frank looked so smug on graduation day and it didn't cross my mind that it was him. The boy who had always been the author of all your despair and pain, he was the one that caused you to shut me out. I didn't know that till too late. You weren't there to finish sixth form with the rest of us and people asked me where you were, all I could do was shrug because I didn't know. There was a party at Hannah Arrington's house that day but it didn't feel right for me to go. Instead I spent the whole night on your doorstep waiting for you to open the door. I just wanted to see you so bad, fix all the heartbreak you'd been through but better this time. You were my best friend, my world. Your parents weren't home, but the light in your bedroom window was on so that's how I knew that you were there listening to my every word.

I took it as an opportunity to tell you all that you missed. Cecilia breaking up with me, Mr Finkle getting fired for inappropriate conduct [because we called it long ago], I told you about my scholarship in the New York arts school. Then there was merely just a cold silence. My chest tightened as I begged for you to look at me with your bright moon shine eyes that were grey like holy stone. But when you placed your head out the window, they were filled with tears and they had dulled. All the life had been drained out of your face as you looked down at me; your eyes were now grey like despairing smoke- like dead dreams. I did not recognize the girl above me. You screamed at me to go away and it sounded as if you meant every word. I thought you'd have the balls to come downstairs to face me but you seemed so fed up. You said that you never wanted to see me ever again, the words cut through me like ice picks and I felt myself bleed out on your doorstep. "Go live your dreams and leave me alone. I can't do this anymore."

I couldn't say much, my lips were tainted with liquor and my throat was blocked with how much I believed that I loved you. I would have told you there and then, but you didn't want to listen so I left.

My heart was filled with all the hurt you had thrown at me, it festered like a tumour.

I always told you how I'd do anything for you and that was one of those times where I did something to make you happy.  The fact that you loathed me meant that there was no reason for me to stay in this city. Every part of me was so tired of fighting and I guess I was a coward for not staying. A wimp for giving up what we had built for almost 16 years.

New York was where dreams were made, you would have loved it. I could imagine you smearing your idealism all over the tall buildings and fast moving cars. It was a bit like London but there weren't as many memories.  I got a chance to write and make something of myself, there wasn't really a day that went by where I didn't wonder how I had done you wrong. Over and over again, I would replay our last moments together and work out what I would have done different. I just didn't want you to hate me, but I left London with you doing just that.