Good Enough (Scomiche)

Ch 1. Saturday

Have you ever had a recurring nightmare? 

A nightmare so horrible that it plagued you even in your waking hours? 

I have. 

I had the most vivid, horrible visions of Mitch and his death. I saw it clearly in my dreams. I heard him screaming, I saw the pain in his eyes. When I'd wake I would swear I could feel the flames on my sweat covered skin. 

It all felt so real. 

The nightmares plagued me for over a year after his death, but finally the frequency began to wane until they disappeared altogether.

But somehow there I was sitting up in bed 6 years later, for the 5th time in the past week, with tears in my eyes and heat on my skin, a severe ache in my heart. 

I should have been past this, I should have been past him. 

I wasn’t even the same person I used to be. I could barely recall that person who had been in love for what felt like every day of their life. 

6 years later and I was a different man.

I was a professional photographer, a damn good one if I do say so myself. I lived in my giant apartment all alone in Manhattan. I had more money than I ever imagined having, more money than anyone probably should. 

I’d met musicians, I’d met actors and actresses, I’d met models and still not one of them had the beauty of the man I had lost so long ago. 

Even she wasn’t even close. She being Kirstie, my best friend. 

She was gorgeous and sassy and sometimes so much like him it made my heart ache at just a memory she would pull to the surface. 

She was my source of strength and she helped me start to open up.

She was the one who helped me move on and introduced me to my first boyfriend post Mitch. She was the one to let me know it was ok to miss him, but I should know that he would want me to be happy. 

But that wasn't really true now was it? If Mitch had wanted me to be happy he wouldn’t have killed himself. If that had been true he would have never left me to the torment that he had. 

I tried my best not to think about it. When he crept into my thoughts I became dejected and melancholy for days at a time, but Kirstie would always find a way to bring me back from the shadows and out of the dark. 

Thankfully, with her help, the random small relationships and flings I had, and being so far away from all of the people and places that reminded me of my lost love, I thought of him less and less until he was simply a memory that popped up only a few times a year. 

That is, until that week.

That week was filled with Mitch. 

For no reason at all the nightmares started again. He was suddenly everywhere. Everywhere I turned I saw something that reminded me of him. I kept stopping in the middle of the sidewalk because I would swear I saw him in the crowd milling about the streets of New York.

Out of nowhere I was trapped again by him and his memory. 

I wondered why? Why then? Why all of a sudden? 

More importantly, how to make it stop again. For someone that used to make me feel so safe and so incredibly loved, now his memory only brought pain and suffering. 

I had to make it stop. I had to make him go away.

I thought maybe another guy would help. I invited Alex over. He was always willing to skip the small talk and get right down to business and this time was no different. My plan didn't quite work. Somehow I still couldn’t get Mitch out of my head, not for one second. 

I compared every motion, every touch, every kiss to what me and Mitch used to have. I compared the sounds Alex grated out to the beautiful sounds that HE used to make. I compared his eyelashes to the long, dark lashes that I had always been obsessed with. I even compared the feel of his hips in my hands. I compared everything, right down to the way his eyes pressed shut as he reached his completion. 

It was unnerving.  

I just wanted it to end. I just knew there was no way I could go on like that. I couldn't fall down into the abyss again.

Mitch was haunting me and haunting my every thought.

I just wished for it to be over. I didn't realize it was about to be. 

It was a Saturday when I got my wish, when everything I thought I knew cracked and the truth started seeping through. 

I’ll never forget the knock on my front door. I’ll never forget opening the door to find Zoe standing there with the strangest, but largest smile I'd ever seen. 

I’ll never forget that heart stopping moment that my eyes fell upon someone that shouldn’t have even been there.

I will never forget that Saturday when my heart came back to me.