Dearest Juliet (Harry Styles)

Thirty Five: Okay

I sat down on my couch feeling my usually feeling of perpetual aloneness. I know, Louis is standing in the living room with me, but I can't explain it. I just always feel alone, even when I'm not. Louis is too busy studying the picture of Juliet and myself to come and sit with me. I attempted to ignore him, really I did, but the fact that he had been like that for awhile now was starting to freak me out. 

"Are you okay, Lou?" I asked, turning away from the telly for a moment. 

He turned, "I--uh-yeah," I watched as his finger pointed to the picture in his right hand, "How long has this been out?" 

"Um, I put it out a few months back." I replied absently, "It was part of one of the last lessons I did with Andie." 

He nodded, coming to sit down beside me. I thought that we had finished the conversation, and I was glad for that because the subject of Andie had become a soft spot recently.

I, really, I just missed her.

"Have you read her letter? Or tried to contact her since she left?" Louis pierced through my thoughts, and my head snapped up to meet his eyes.

"Nope."

"Why?"

"Because, I'm just angry at her. I can't explain it." I said, trying to focus on the telly before my thoughts of her completely took over. 

Louis threw the picture on my lap, "Try anyway." 

Sighing while turning the telly off and picking up the picture, I turned to face Louis as I thought about how I could possibly explain my feelings towards Andie. 

"It's like I'm angry at her for lying, but it's even more than that." I started messing with the edges of the picture in my hand, smiling at Juliet without a scarf on. I always liked her better without a scarf on. "She got to live, Louis. It's like every chance that Juliet missed out on getting, Andie somehow received. Andie lived and got lungs. Andie got a second chance at life." I paused for a moment, thinking, "I don't want to be angry at her, but how am I suppose to forgive someone for getting everything Juliet didn't have a chance to get?" 

"I don't know, mate. I really don't. How did you forgive Juliet for dying?" 

"I can't really explain that. It just sort of happened that way. Andie helped me see past all the pain of losing Jules and move on." 

"Maybe you should see past the pain of losing Juliet again." Louis said thoughtfully.

My eyebrows scrunched in confusion, "How do you mean?"

"I mean that Andie was literally standing right in front of you, asking you to make her stay, but you couldn't look past pain of losing Juliet to make her stay. You couldn't forgive her for living, could you?"

I took my long fingers and rubbed them against my eyes, exhausted about dealing with this. I always deal with this, the pain of losing Juliet. The pain that sometimes stops me from doing things I need to do. And I'm just tired. So horrifically tired of everything being so complicated. All I want is for everything to get better. 

Everybody says that it gets better, but does it really? Or does it just get less painful? Do our minds just shut it out more and more, because we ,as humans, just can't take the pain for such extended amounts of time? 

Since April first of 2013, I've been dying. Slowly, agonizingly dying from the pain, but time went on. People kept moving forward around me, and nobody noticed me lying helpless on the ground, begging for someone to help. I tried so hard to get up, but I was weak. Too weak to handle anything until Andie came along. She picked me up, showing me that if I just stopped lying around the day would come that I would learn to embrace the numbing effect time had on wounds. I would not heal, but I would survive. Andie made it easier to survive.