Find The Beauty Within: The Pain and The Struggle

I Love Her

   Normani's POV:

    "There's a time when people say your work is revolutionary, but you have to keep being revolutionary. I can't keep shooting pop stars all my life. You have to keep changing, keep pushing yourself, looking for the new, the unusual." -Rankin.

    I was restless that night; the night I broke Dinah for good. I kept replaying it all in my head—the things we did, the harsh words I said, and the final way I crushed her heart... Saying yes to Zendaya's proposal. Dinah meant more to me than she would ever understand, but she was right when she told me it never would've worked out. We were so toxic together—a mix of the harshest chemicals used for that of an atomic bomb. Together, she and I were bound to explode. Had we been together, we would've collided, causing an explosion in our relationship. We would've broken each other repeatedly, the way we had been doing without being together—but it would've been worse. So much worse.

    As hard as I tried, I couldn't get her face out of my head. She looked so broken when I left her, so broken when I said yes, and officially done when she said she was leaving. But I didn't believe her. There was no way she'd leave her best friends behind—no way she'd leave me behind. She loved me just as much as I loved her.

    I loved her.

    I love her. More than I loved Zendaya.

    The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. There I was, lying in bed with a girl I loved because she was safe, when the girl I was in love with, was at home crying her eyes out because I broke her. I needed to fix it, needed to fix her.

    I slipped out of bed, grabbing my phone with me. There was no way she'd answer my calls, but I knew either Camila or Lauren would. So I played it safe, dialing Lauren's number, praying to the heavens that she didn't kill me for disturbing her sleep.

    To my surprise, she picked up on the second ring. "Hello?" her groggy voice filled my ears.

    "Lauren!" I breathed. "Thank God you're awake. Listen, I know it's late, but I'm coming over...I need to see Dinah."

   "Coming over?" she questioned. "You can't come over. We just left."

    "Left? Left where?" My heart was pounding as I anticipated her words. They could've left to take Dinah somewhere to cheer her up right?

   "To take Dinah to the airport, Mani," Lauren told me. "She told you she was leaving. Listen, I gotta go. I'm sorry you missed your chance."

    The line went dead, and for a second, I felt like I did, too. Dinah meant it. She was serious about leaving, and I had missed my opportunity to catch her. But that didn't mean I had to give up did it? If God was on my side, I'd make it just in time to convince her to stay. To stay with me, because I couldn't go on and marry someone else, knowing full well that my heart belonged to Dinah. It always had, but I was in denial. I chose the safe route instead of taking a shot, and now I was going to lose her for good.

    But I couldn't.

    Because I needed her more than I thought I ever could. Needed her like I needed air to breathe. Because I was so inexplicably in love with her.

    "Where are you going?" the quiet voice of my girlfriend asked as I slipped on my jacket. Her voice quivered, it shook. She knew.

    I couldn't face her—couldn't look into those big hazel eyes and tell her the thing that would break her heart. I couldn't tell her the one thing she feared most was happening. Zendaya had been nothing but good to me. I couldn't break her the way I had been—she deserved so much better. She deserved someone who could give her their heart, which was something I couldn't do when Dinah's fist was clenched so tightly around my heart.