The Lines Between Us | ✔

|.31.|

September 30th, 2:56 am

1 year later,

Ash

It's been a year since Bella died.

An entire year.

I can't even explain how I've managed this long. Over the year, I've learned that the worst emotion a person can feel is love. Love tears people apart — leaves them with nothing by a shell of themselves to live with.

I haven't had a day where I wasn't alone since she died. I just left her there. I left her in my house and ran away.

I was a coward.

I didn't know what else to do. Killers aren't meant to be found. They're supposed to run off into the distance and forget about what they did, meet their soulmate, and start a real life.

I can't. The one thing that made me happy has gone. That's the worst part of it all. Knowing that the one person that made me the happiest is never coming back.

The person that gave me the best memories, has merely become a memory herself.

At this point, I'm not even certain she ever existed. It would be easier if that were true. I don't even have pictures with her. Just photos I stole from her mom's house. I went home first, then went there. 

I never went back to college. I never said goodbye to Noah. To Jackson. To Josh.

I just disappeared.

I'm far away now. A hundred miles from my past. I don't know if anyone even found her, I don't have a TV to find out. No one has found me yet, so maybe not. I shudder at the thought of her still being there.  I wouldn't know if anyone phoned me, I left my phone at the frat house that day. I can't remember exactly why I didn't take it with me. The rest of the day is vivid.

It feels like a part of myself has been stripped away.

It would be easier if someone else killed her.

But it was me.

I did it to her. I'm the monster.

I wanted to give Bella the whole world, and more. But, in doing so, I ended up taking her away from it. I thought she wanted to die. I thought that, by killing her, I would stop both our pain. Maybe I would realize that I didn't love her, and get over it in seconds. But I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I'm not even living at this point. I'm just existing in my own little world.

Drowning myself in my sorrows.

The worst pain a person can experience, is living for someone who already died.

Which is why I don't live.

I couldn't even sleep through a night, knowing what I did to her.

So I didn't then, and I don't know.

Sleep will never be enough for it is my soul that is tired.

I see your face everywhere. In every puddle, every shard of glass. And it still hurts to see you. I thought that maybe one day, I could think about you and smile. And finally be at peace.

I doubt it.

Losing you was like losing a part of myself. But when you died, I know you left me part of your soul, filling in the hole.

Every time I cry, I lose a part of you. So instead, I sit in the rain and let the sky cry for me. 

Once, we danced in the rain. If I sit in it now, maybe I can drown in something other than my thoughts.

I'm doing so now.

My tears are painful, like glass forcing its way out of my eyes.

I deserve the pain. I deserve the hell that is coming for me.

I wish I could say I'm trying to move on, but I'm not.

Bella Davies, you are still the first thing I think about when I wake up every morning.

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So that's it, my book is officially finished.

I've always written the ends of my stories before the beginning. I knew that Bella had to die. I planned every end-quote they would say, in the middle of the night one day. But as I was writing, I became more and more attached to their relationship. I didn't want to kill her — but it was a necessary sacrifice.

I hope you loved the book and please let me know your thoughts on it!!!