Always You || Patrick Cripps

34.

Keeping this in mind, experiencing a heartbreak through someone else is just as hurtful as going through your own heartbreak. You have to learn to be strong for the person who is hurting.

But this was a kind of hurting that I wasn't familiar with. This was the kind of pain that couldn't disappear with ice cream and crying it out.

It was not just emotional pain. But also physical. And that made me ten times more angry than I started out. With every hour that passed, I had more time to think about what to do.

And all I could really do was wait for help to arrive. Being on my own was hard. I didn't know how I could help when all she wanted to do was cry.

But I found myself becoming impatient, not wanting to wait to check in on her.

I shot up from my seat and rushed to the door when I heard her sobs get quieter. My concerns grew larger when she fell silent.

With all of the rage that had built up inside of me. I marched over to the old wooden door, plastered onto the hinge of the bathroom.

The door was the brown of unburnished wood, dull and spotted with years of water damage. I closed my fingers around it to twist but they simply couldn't do anything about the fact that the door was locked.

With that in mind, I felt there was no other option. The time that passed not hearing her voice anymore was past a level of concern. It was at a level of panic.

I stood by the door, with one hand on the door knob. Using all the force I could muster from my exhausted body. One extremely hard push with my shoulder, swung the door open.

Pain shot up to my shoulder straight away but I ignored it when I saw Georgia.

The room filled up with hot air, fogging up all the mirrors and windows inside.

Her fragile figure on the floor of the shower, tucked in a ball as she silently sobbed. Under the steaming hot water that cascaded down her skin.

She sat silently, hunched over and with a sense of loss so powerful that her muscles wouldn't respond to commands.

I repeated her name several times, hoping she would just look up and tell me she was okay. But that never happened and I quickly discovered it never would.

I rushed over and opened the shower door. I bent down to her level and stayed silent for a few seconds.

A single drop of grief welled up from the corner of my eye. I shook my head as I watched her shatter right before me.

I then grabbed a towel that was close by and switched the water off. Covering her exposed body and bruises, I pulled her in to my chest and refused to let her go.

Her gaze was fixated onto the shower walls. Fixed on some imaginary future of a life she had always wanted. To be released from the hell she was in.

A tightening of her throat and a short intake of breath forecast the explosion of emotion which to date, she had managed to keep buried deep inside in my presence.

Her head rested on my shoulder as her sobs rang through my ear. I rubbed her head soothingly, doing anything I could to try and make her comfortable.