Madeline remained in the shower until her tears ran dry and her body stopped trembling. She couldn't imagine anything hurting worse than that night twelve years ago, but reality proved her wrong when she stepped back into the room, and it was empty.
Elijah's things were gone, and a note written on a good ten pages of the small hotel stationary was stacked in a neat pile on the bed.
My Loving Madeline,
I can't help but feel like I should have taken what you offered me early this morning. Then I would have a piece of you no one could ever take away from me, and you would have someone who loved you more than anyone be your first. And I do love you more than anyone, Madeline. Everything decent I've done in my life was so I could be a person who deserved you as a best friend.
But our friendship shifted as soon as you came back into my life. All of this was a fantasy I thought I could live. A beautiful woman to sleep next to every night, and wake up to every morning. An incredible, yet simple future I could have had with you. Just... love. That big sort of love most people think they've found, but fades over time. My love for you would never have faded. Will never fade. You are the only person I could ever love like that, because before you came back into my life, I just assumed I was incapable of feeling it.
This isn't goodbye unless you want it to be. I'll be packing up the things you have in my apartment, and taking them to your place, along with a box full of letters I've written to you over the years, but never had the courage to send. If you think it would be better for us to cut our ties (and make no mistake, Madeline, we've always been tied together), I want it to be as easy for you as possible. I don't want you to suffer any more pain, but I feel like I'm incapable of not causing it. It's further proof that I may be too broken to be fixed. If I can hurt you this easily, the person who's always been my world, I'm not fit to love. I don't deserve your heart if I can't take care of it.
Just because I'm leaving here doesn't mean I'm leaving. I won't disappear again. I won't run away. That's a promise I'm making to you. If you want to rebuild our friendship, having any measure of you in my life is a gift. If you don't, I get it. I won't think any less of you.
I remember my mother teasing me when I was little, not long before her death. When your family moved next door, you seemed convinced we were going to be best friends right off the bat. You didn't seem to notice the age difference, even though you were just a toddler. You were four when my mom got really sick, and she and your mother were sitting on the back porch of my house, watching us play some make believe game in the yard. I heard our mothers joking that they'd be in-laws one day, even though I knew my mother was aware she wouldn't be alive to see it.
Loving you was my fate, Madeline. I think I fell in love with you when I woke up after that first night, and a panic set in when you weren't there. I had a panic attack right there in your bedroom and had to wait to come downstairs until it faded. The universe knew it would take my mother from me and gave me you. Someone I could love. A family I could be a part of. People who would make the pain just a little less.
You are everything beautiful in this world, Madeline. You're the sun, and the brightest stars. You were my hope for a better future. But I can't be selfish. Your future has always been so much bigger than my own. You deserve a husband you can create a family with, a child you can pour all your love into. It's barely on your radar now, but that need for a child will grow over time, and we can't pretend I'm the man who can give that to you. I suppose it isn't a 'can' or 'can't'. I won't. You are the only person who's entered my life that made me feel like it was an option, but it isn't. I won't be a father, and force a child to grow up with all my issues. I won't be a burden to them, and I won't fuck them up like my father fucked me up, and his father before that. I refuse to pass down those genes.
If you want to remain in my life, or come back to it, you can keep my key. My door is always open to you. If you don't feel like you can be in my life anymore, I'll still make sure you'll always know where to find me.
This must feel like last time, but it isn't. Last time was me running away, and this time I want to stay for you, even if I can't have you. I'll always be here if you need a friend. I wish I could have been so much more than that. You were my future I dared to dream about. I wish I could keep my dream catcher. You didn't just protect me from the nightmares, M&M, you replaced them with visions of possibility.
I love you, Madeline. More than anything or anyone who's ever entered my life. And God help me, I'm in love with you. I was before that first kiss, and I will be for the rest of my life. Like I said, you're my fate. I only wish I was yours.
-E
He was her fate, wasn't he? All this time, she'd been unable to move on from him. The love she felt never faded, nor did the memories. That meant something, didn't it? Life couldn't be this fucking cruel to her; not after weighing her down for all these years. It wouldn't dare dangle happiness in front of her, only to rip it away once more.
But it had. The letter may not have been a 'goodbye forever', but it was certainly saying goodbye to what could have been. And if this hurt so damn much, how would it feel having him in the sidelines of her life as she tried to move on? Was moving on even an option with him in her life in any capacity? And if it was, could she cause him the pain he'd caused her, and force him to watch her life evolve away from him?
An infinite amount of questions that had no answers. Maybe the answers would come naturally over time, but right now, all they did was add to a suffocating pain. She was given this beautiful future, one shared with the person who mattered most in the world, and the universe just told her 'no'.
Twelve years of missing him, and Madeline had just gotten him back. Now, even if she kept him in her life, he wasn't hers to keep. There would forever be a sadness looming over their friendship, a wanting that couldn't be ignored or acted upon. Dreaming of him would become her nightmares, because she'd awake to something forever out of her reach.