The Misfortunes of a Girl

Undying

She's sitting, watching him pace the floor. Words are falling from his mouth - excuses.

She was trying not to cry, to breathe, to scream.

Inside, she's dying as he moves on, telling her that he met someone else; someone prettier, someone sexy, someone funny, someone who does all the right things, someone who makes him happy.

Someone who isn't you.

He stops talking and looks at her as if he's truly seeing her for the first time. She can't respond to anything he's said, her heart shattering within her chest as all those fears tumbled down on top of her

Crushing her.

He sighed, exhaled the words "I'm sorry." She stood up, pounding her fists on his chest as the water pipes finally opened up. She couldn't speak; only sobs were escaping from her enclosed throat.

He took the blows, trying to calm her down, but it was no use. He had broke her.

Years later she received their wedding invitation in the mail. She lived alone, in the same place where he had broke her heart and shattered her soul. She no longer trusted a single thing because...everything always leaves.

Within those years, she searched, trying to find what it was that made everyone leave her. What made her so...wrong?

Was it something about her face? Maybe it was how weirdly deep her voice was? Was her hair too thick? Her belly too chubby? Her thighs too wide, her waist too thin, her eyes too brown, her laugh too loud, her indecisiveness too obnoxious?

Was it just all of her? Was she just too physically unattractive and too emotionally damaged to be loved?

It must be her.

It can't be him.

Somewhere deep inside she knew the answer. But she had no words to form it, had no way of understanding what it was about her that made everyone want to leave.

So she stared at the invitation, knowing she can't go and watch as the man who held her heart in his bruising grasp, the man who ripped away her soul, was now giving himself to someone else.

Someone beautiful; someone emotionally intact, with no scars patterning on the inside.

Someone who is perfect.

Whatever was left alive deep inside of her slowly broke away, crumbling into dust. Her whole body was numb as she began to wonder why she was still living, still breathing in the first place.

She had nothing and no one and it would forever be this way. But she couldn't end her life; she had tried. Some cruel part of her wanted her to stay alive, to stay breathing. But inside, she was already dead.

Her heart no longer beat, for it no longer had a reason to. Her soul had curled up into an emotional wreckage before dissolving away, leaving her a shell.

Empty and alone.

Weeks go by, nothing changes. Hospital visits become more frequent as her will to live fights against herself and one day, she's finally able to let go.

No one knows what pushed her to the edge. Her family was devastated when they recevied the calls. No one knows, but him.

The funeral was a few days after. Many people showed up - people she hardly knew, who her beautiful, scarred soul had touched.

She watched from above as all the people who witnessed her burial slowly left. Some left alone, others left in groups, like a slow leaking faucet, water dripping quietly.

And eventually, she was alone.

She sat in her heaven, alone, staring down at her grave below.

Surrounding it were the gravestones of lovers who had been buried together,

Forever.

Something echoed throughout the empty cemetery, causing her to look away from the place where her body lay in the cool ground.

A man stumbled towards where her body lay, the dirt still fresh from being overturned and unearthed to prepare for her broken body. The man fell to his knees in front of the stone, a single rose clutched in his rough grasp.

Tears slid down his cheeks as he looked at the stone. She watched from above.

"I'm sorry." He was sobbing, repeatedly, whispering he was sorry.

Her heart fell as she went to him, for it was her love, the man she never forgot.

Her hand reached out, touching his shoulder. He sniffed, touching her name carved in the stone.

"I never stopped loving you."

He stood up, placing the rose on her stone, walking back to his car where the beautiful woman he had chosen was sitting, rubbing her round baby bump.

She felt her heart breaking as she watched but deep down, she felt a piece of her come back to life.

A piece of her heart, her soul, never ending and undying.