and then you left // cth

chapter 42: goodbye.

We are toxic to each other.

And maybe I will never really know why this is, why we fell so hard for each other the way that we did. But nevertheless, there is nothing that anybody in the world could do to make me regret meeting Alexis Annalise Patterson.

But I will not spend the rest of my life chasing the feeling that I felt with her, the one that she made me feel. Because truth be told, it was not a good feeling. Instead, I will spend the rest of my days trying to be happy, and to make those around me happy.

I guess I can start this right now.

I turn my attention back to Luke, who is still on the phone, but is silent. "Luke?"

"Yeah?" He responds. I glance across the room at my car keys that are sitting in the little dish on the table next to my front door. This is the first time in months I've been able to find them so easily. But I've done some much needed reorganizing, and I am determined to keep things where they belong.

Before I know it, I am walking over to this little table and picking up the set of keys, jingling them. And I remember the way that I jingled my keys at Lex just before I took her up to the hill to ask her to marry me. That was when everything really went south, I see that now.

"I'll take you to the airport," I say to Luke, and he pauses.

"Really Cal? You'd want to?" His words are slow and unsure, but I am very sure. I am sure that this is what I need to move on. This will be my closure. I need this. She needs this.

"Yeah," I whisper, and then I inhale before it hits me too hard. "I'll pick you up in an hour."

The time passes slowly. And as much as I wish this day never had to come, I am so grateful for it.

I try to take comfort in the knowing that Lex is so close to me right now, that I could get into my car and drive and go see her in just a few short minutes. I know where she is, and what she is doing. I will no longer have that liberty. She will be far away, and this time, I won't chase her.

Maybe me coming here in the first place was a call for help, an ultimatum. It was like I was telling her that she could either follow me, or say goodbye to us.

Even though she says she didn't know I was here, I know that it's a lie.

She had to know.

"She had to know," I whisper out loud to myself. Once the sentence leaves my lips, I look around at my empty apartment. Her scent no longer lingers, nor do the dirty dishes she left in the sink. I'd left those for as long as I possibly could, but yesterday the pizza crumbs started to rot and I just couldn't take it anymore. Now every trace of her is gone from my apartment, but the memory of her will never leave my heart.

"She had to know," I repeat, and I finally realize how alone I feel in this world. She was my rock, my everything, and then she was gone. Or I was gone, because I am the one who left. I am the one who cheated on her, who broke her heart. I am the one who no longer could look at myself in the mirror everyday. I am the one who wanted to die because of how much I hated myself for what I did to her.

I am the reason for this all. I know this now.

And it is only now that I know this that I can start to move on.

With these thoughts, I walk to my front door. I turn back and look at my apartment and even though I know I will soon return to this very room, I know that it will never quite look the same to me again. The next time I see it, she will be gone, as will a chapter of my life.

I slowly take my keys from the table next to the door. I remember the way that her hands grazed this very table as she searched for the same pair of keys. I remember the first time she came to this apartment, the first time I went to her house in Seattle. I remember the first time we snuck out her window, the first time we smoked weed on her balcony. I remember it all. I won't forget it.