*** Featured on StoruesUndiscovered ***
A bittersweet story about a lover who never stayed and a love that never ended.
Disclaimer- This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the products of my imagination. Any resemblance is...
"... And I don't even need your love, but you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough." Somebody that I used to know by Gotye ft Kimbra.
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I was a wonderer... for years I had been wondering why.
Why did he come into my life in the first place if all he was going to do was leave me in the dust? Why did he let me love him so bravely if all he was going to do was hurt me so cowardly? Why did he lather me with bliss if he was planning on rinsing me with misery all along? Why did he build me up from head to toe just to break me down and leave me in the pool of my demise? Why did he choose to absolve her of her sins and make me pay for mine? Why did he hold on to her so tight and let go of me so easily? Why was it always her and never me?
Why was it never me? Why not me?
Caged inside the tiny elevator with the brown-eyed culprit standing mere inches away from my face, I finally had the opportunity to bring my futile wondering to an end. To ask him why? To demand answers. But not a single WH question came out of my gaping mouth. I might have drooled a little as I stood there idly, gazing at Noah, thunderstruck out of my cognizance. Even as he stood a foot away from me, I longed for him.
Butterflies swarmed my lower belly, making me feel like a giddy middle schooler stuck in a closet, playing seven minutes in heaven with her crush. A wave of nostalgia engulfed me like a blanket, coddling the goosebumps roused all over my skin back to sleep. Every emotion I had harbored in my body assembled and filled the cavernous hole in the middle of my heart, urging it to beat again.
It sprang triumphantly.
"Uh..." Noah's shaky voice came out muffled—stifled by his face mask—breaking the awkward silence. Fleeting microseconds blossomed into lingering seconds while I waited for him to follow his filler word with actual, cohesive words.
With his hand that was still clutching my phone extended toward me, Noah watched me watch him for a beat before he uttered a hesitant hi.
Looking up at him from under my lashes, I took my cellphone from his waiting hand and cast him a thankful smile. My cheeks flamed at the quick contact my fingers had with his hand, but my brows furrowed when my eyes took in his appearance.
He was standing awkwardly by the open elevator door with his legs straddling the threshold, one foot in and one foot out. His shoulders were tense, his posture was stiff, and overall, his body language was just way off. It was almost as if he was ready to run away from the impending and unavoidable confrontation we were bound to have someday.
"Wha—where have you been?" before I even had time to pluck the rest of my words out from the jumble in my head, a stern voice I knew so well yelled out my name.
"Dr. Van de Kamp!" It was Dr. Brown, my attending. She was standing outside of the open elevator, casting me a look that could kill. Dragging her eyes up and down and assessing me like I was a delinquent, "What in the world is going on with you? Put your damn mask back on!" she hissed, throwing an apologetic glance toward Noah and someone else standing outside the elevator.
