Pretty Boy // H.S

10.

I didn't think it would hurt this much to say goodbye to Harry. I knew it would be painful, but never did I think I'd feel like a weight would be pushed onto my chest, the pressure increasing with every passing second that his damn smile appears in my mind, until I can barely breathe. It seems a cliché to consider heartbreak as such a thing, all the things we did for each other on a constant repeat as that weight only grows, but it's true.

What makes it worse is the fact that neither one of us can blame someone for this. I can't run around telling everyone how my heart chose someone that had no room for me in theirs, and he can't claim that the person he fell for didn't want him back. In a perfect world, we would be together. We would be walking down the street with our hands locked together, smiles painted on the canvases of our appearance, kissing without consequence and loving without fear. This isn't a perfect world, though. And we cannot have those things.

It's not that we weren't enough for one another. We were, completely. It just wasn't enough for our circumstances. To be with me he'd have to completely uproot his life, which he said he had no qualms with doing, but for me to sit back and do nothing seems wrong. It's one sided. We were naïve to ever consider being able to make a relationship work, stupid to have allowed ourselves to fall so fast within a short amount of time, selfish to have even indulged the notion of love with each other.

Someday, we will both be happy. We will both find people that do not have to sacrifice to love us. People that will say all the right things, never have us doubting, always reminding us of our worth. We will have our happy endings, we will live out our fairytales. Just not together.

I believe there is someone out there for everyone. Even after everything I've endured with the people I've given my love to, I still hold on to the small fraction of hope that I'm just kissing some frogs until I find my prince. I won't have to wish for the love I see on the pages because it will be written for me. I'll be the protagonist and I'll have the ending I desire.

Harry will have that too. I know that to be true. He has the purest heart and the kindest nature. Anyone that gets to experience it is lucky. There is a soul out there that is destined to meet his, destined to connect and become one. This week I've hoped it would be mine, but that's not what was written for us, it seems. Perhaps we are meant to find each other again, maybe in another lifetime or a different circumstance, but for now, it is void.

I think a part of me will always wait for him. There will always be something craving him, seeking the familiar. Instead of finding someone new, my heart will ache to remember who I knew. One day I'll see that smile again, I'll hear that laugh, I'll feel that warmth, and then I'll know that his was the heart I was meant to love.

Until that day comes, I will continue living in the shadow of what might have been. The sun will not shine, the rain will continue to fall, and I will be surrounded by the noise of my tormented thoughts. He's left a mark on me that cannot be removed. I could try scrubbing at my skin until it bleeds, watching the scars scab over in hopes that what will result is a fresh surface, but he will still remain. Imprinted on me forever. Life will go on, but it will not be the same. I don't want it to be. Like salt in the sea he is a part of me, because he broke me from my shell. That chrysalis I cocooned myself in for protection has been shattered and now I must experience the world in a new light.

I'm terrified to even try, but the small push I've been given this week has energised me to want it at the very least. Despite the pain and the heartache, Harry has given me hope and belief in myself. It's not that he is the sole purpose for it, but he showed me it was always there, that I am worthy of everything I've been denied, including a love for myself. I've grown to appreciate myself more this week than I've ever managed to do in years of therapy. And I credit that to having someone help me believe it, because I believed them.