In the grand scheme of things, I guess I always knew Mia would never be mine.
No one would ever fill the void she left in my chest. It throbbed erratically, never dulling.
It was my black thread.
When you are in love with someone, you choose to see that person only for the good. You see the way they smile when a dog tugs at its owner's leash to meet them. You see the way they giggle when you text them an inside joke from across the room. You only see what you love. You choose to see that they love you too. But when this curtain falls, this illusion you've created disappears, you realize they weren't the person you chose to see at all.
Mia was selfish.
Selfish to stay with me, selfish to leave me, selfish to use me.
Just like the first syllable of her name, that's all she thought about.
Herself.
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The sky was pink and yellow, with white clouds creamily mixed like a sorbet. The sidewalk glistened in a hopeful way from a sun shower earlier. She was talking to me, but I was too busy, looking high up at the skyscrapers wondering what my life could have been.
There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't think of Mia.
She laughed and pointed. I turned my head. A taxi drove straight into a puddle and soaked a man in a business suit.
Old me would've laughed.
Back at my dorm, she lingered by the door.
She wanted to kiss me, I wanted to kiss her.
But I couldn't.
"Hannah." I hesitated.
Her wide blue eyes blinked behind her thick rimmed glasses.
I tried again, "It's not that I don't like you, I'm just not ready."
"It's been three years, Jake. I'm not gonna wait around forever." Hannah sighed, running a hand through her sleek brown hair.
She was so pretty, almost as pretty as Mia.
She could never be Mia though and I could never let what Mia did to me happen again.
I wished her a good night and crept back into my room. The lights were off, they had been for two years.
I set my bag on the table and hung the yellow umbrella in the closet, collapsing onto my bed. I stared at its tattered edges, imagining what my life would have looked like if Mia hadn't died that miserable May over three years ago. We could be strolling down East 23rd street, eating mangoes from the Gramercy Market. Talking about our day, the weather, our future. But then the awful reminder jolted me out of this reverie. There is no future, there is no Mia, she never wanted that with me. There was only one reason I could not date Hannah or any other girl like her.
I loved a girl like Hannah before.
A flower, like Hannah.
I fell in love with a flower.
She taught me that nothing beautiful could last.
YOU ARE READING
The Yellow Umbrella
Teen FictionJake Morrow has a new crush. Okay, well he's had a crush on the same girl for three years. But now, after years and years of waiting, the mysterious Mia, who moved to his small town his freshmen year of high school, has finally noticed him. Only th...
