A Love Like War

t h i r t e e n

"What's up, Stells?" I ask, placing the controller on the couch beside me and turning to look at her. That's when I take in her appearance.

Her hair is in slight disarray. The strands falling down her shoulders in choppy waves. Her clothes are crumpled and wrinkly, and her feet are bare. But that's not what bothers me the most. Her makeup is running down her face in thin black lines. The skin around her eyes is blotchy and red. She's been crying.

"Jack-" she murmurs quietly.

I move to embrace her. "Shh. What's wrong." My lips move against her hair, and I feel her tears against my shirt. Then she pulls away.

"Jack," she begins again before taking a shaky breath, "Jack. It's not working anymore."

In hindsight silence probably wasn't the right answer, and neither were the tears that started to gather in the corners of my eyes. In fact, I don't think anything I did was right, 'cause she still left.

"Say something." She pleads.

I swallow the lump in my throat. "Is that what you want?" I whisper quietly.

She nods and I try to blink away the tears before she sees them.

"Then I guess that's it. Isn't it." I tell her with a sad smile. She moves to take something from her pocket and my breath catches in my throat.

No, baby, please. I think in my head as she produces a necklace. Not just any necklace, the one I bought for her seven months ago. Our four year anniversary. The delicate silver star hangs from a silver chain with a small moon overlapping it. Simple and beautiful, just like her.

She called me cheesy when I pulled that line, but I could tell she secretly liked it. I told her I was the moon. I told her I loved her and wanted us to last as long as the stars and the moon. She laughed and told me that most of the stars we saw were gone, and that's why our wishes never came true. Maybe that's why we didn't last, because I wished on a star for forever, but I was just calling to an empty sky.

"Here." She mumbles as she passes me the silver chain.

"I can't." I whisper as I close her finger back around the pendant.

She closes her eyes and looks up at me. "Jack, don't make this harder than it already is."

"It's yours Stells. You have my whole heart, I can't just take it back. Keep it. If I can't have you, I want you to have a piece of me, a memory to keep. Please." I murmur.

She looks at me once more before turning away and walking through the door.

But the idiot I call myself wouldn't let her go.

"Stella, wait!" I shout. My feet move to chase after her before my mind is comprehending what's going on.

"What." She snaps as she turns to look at me.

"Why?" I ask softly, shying away from the glint of anger in her eyes.

"It's not you. Jack, we fell out of love and it's not the same. I've known it for a while, I thought I had time to distance myself properly before we broke up. But then I met another guy, and he was into me. He was different, he wasn't like you. He's great. He treats me like I'm the only one who matters, and- I don't know. But I wanted to give him a shot, you know? We both know how unfair it would have been for us to remain in a relationship if I'm always thinking about him and not you, and I didn't want you finding out about something that wasn't even there yet. I never cheated on you, and I never would have. That's why it's over." She murmurs quietly. This time I'm too stunned to stop her from leaving.

And that's what she does.

She leaves, and never returns.

Because I lost her, she's never coming back.

↑↓↑↓↑↓

"That's harsh." Alex murmurs after a moment.

I nod, don't I know it.

"I'm sorry man. That's really rough." I know.

But truth is, I'm not sure what hurt more. The fact that she left me because she didn't love me anymore, or that I wasn't enough to make her stay.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I hate like everyone
WATTPAD RECOMMENDATION:
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