fake it til you make it | greta van fleet

a lover's plight | one

There was a certain type of loneliness that struck only in the dead of the night. A specific type of sadness, of longing really, that permeated the darkness when you were laying in bed all alone. It was as if the house missed him too, like the walls themselves were crying out for him when it was too dark to be seen.

Almost a month had passed since Sam had walked out on you, and it still wasn't getting any easier.

They said that time was meant to heal all wounds, that over time even the deepest cuts would mend, but you were starting to doubt the sentiment. It had been weeks since that fateful night, since that one last argument that ended it all, and even after all that time, you could still hear the door slamming behind him. You could still hear his voice, loud and pitched high with anger, yelling things you never thought he'd dare to say to you.

You weren't quite sure who was to blame, at the end of the day. You still weren't even sure what had led the two of you down such a path, what had been the cause of all the arguments, and fights, and nights spent sleeping alone before the ultimately bitter end came to fruition. Things had been so good, for so long, and you had never once imagined that your relationship with Sam would have crashed and burned so rapidly.

It was the isolation that really got to you, though.

When you're with someone for so long, when you go through so many of your formative years with someone and devote so much of yourself to them, it's natural for their world to envelop your own so seamlessly. His family had become your own, his friends were your friends, and now you weren't quite sure where you stood any longer.

Other than a few sporadic messages checking in with you, you hadn't heard much from any of them. Josh, his older brother and arguably the one member you had been closest with aside from him, texted you occasionally but it was never anything of substance. A link to a song he thought you'd like, a photograph of him doing something stupid as if to beg you to tell him to stop, and a plethora of random movie reviews.

Not one of them had asked how you were doing since the break-up. None of them had checked in to see if you were okay, if you needed anything, or even just some company, and you hated to admit that it hurt. It hurt a lot, actually.

You'd thought they saw you as one of their own, just as you'd viewed them as your family, but apparently, you had been wrong. At the end of it all, you accepted your fate and cut your losses. They were Sam's family, well and truly, before they were anything to you. If this were a divorce, then he'd gotten custody and you couldn't even blame them. They were his to begin with, after all.

You hadn't seen him once since the night everything had fallen apart. You'd tried your best to always be home, waiting oh so hopefully for him to step through that door again so you could plead for him to just come home, but he was like a ghost. He'd slipped in while you were at work one day, no longer able to call off without being written up, and you'd come home to find the place completely bare of his influence.

That day had been the hardest.

The first thing you had noticed had been the fucking mugs. Sam had brought a rather impressive collection into your relationship, and it had only grown over the years you were together. When you'd made the decision to live together, you'd made sure to find a good cabinet to display them in–that day, the cabinet was bare except for your lone addition to the collection.

From there, you'd gone a little crazy. You'd torn the house apart to find everything that was missing. His clothes were gone, his shoes, his toiletries, his favorite towel, even the stupid fucking dog statue he'd bought for the back porch was gone. He'd taken everything, leaving no trace of himself behind.

On the counter, he'd left his key. No note, no anything, and you'd lost it. You had thrown that key like it burned you, like it was to blame for your pain, and then you'd had a good scream cry. Then, once you'd finally managed to breathe again, you'd spent far too long searching for the key amidst the chaos.