🖤
~January, 1993~
If I'd known how it would end, I would never have let it begin.
I should have turned away, ignored the way he tilted his head to the side then smiled at me without that judgement that's always there when you meet someone new.
I should have ignored the way it felt like he saw right into me.
I should have stopped his hand from leaving the rusted metal railing of the library steps; stopped him curling the button back up on my jacket right where my heart thumped against his fingers.
I should have held his wrist back and warned his eyes off me.
I should have set him on a different course, with a different person, in a different place.
I should have told him to get as far away from me as possible.
If I hadn't been there that day and felt the emptiness of my small world filling up with the vastness of his smile he'd still be here.
But he's not here.
And neither am I.
I'm a living ghost.
An empty shadow.
I'm the person who waits too long at the counter to be served. The person the bus doesn't stop for. The person who gets their shoulder bumped. "Sorry. I didn't see you."
I'm the person who makes no dent in the world.
The one who has disappeared.
And all the while he's the one that's gone, I'm the one who doesn't want to be here anymore.
🖤