Stand By Me - Leah Williamson

This Was My Forever

Kameron's POV

"What happened Kam?" Keira asked as Lucy let me through their front door. 

I held Ringo in my shaking arms, Lucy gently pulled him from me as she sat me down onto the sofa. I was aware of what just happened but I was still shaken, it had ended so suddenly. The whole of dinner we were great, on the walk home we were great, even watching TV we were great. And then suddenly it had all come crashing down.

And the problem never was our greatness or how much fun we had, it's that Leah had broken my heart one too many times and kept it locked in her hands. And it made me so angry because I so badly wanted to give my undying love to others but I had been so foolish to give to to someone else forever. 

I would never love someone else how I loved Leah, more so I'd never be able to love myself without her. 

"It's over with me and Ingrid," I whispered.

"It's going to be okay Kam," Keira pulled me into a motherly hug, kissing the crown of my head. 

"I know," I sobbed, "but I am forever going to be alone."

"No you won't," Keira assured me, "You will find your person."

"I found them already Kie."

"Oh," was all that left her mouth, of course she knew exactly who I was speaking about, it was obvious. So blatantly obvious that there was one person in the world who I was capable of giving my love to, yet Leah wouldn't accept it. In fact, she'd run away from it. 

"It's going to work out," Lucy now sat the other side of me, rubbing circles on my back as my sobs shook through my body, tears staining Keira's top. 

"But what if she never speaks to me again?"

"She loves you Kam," Keira assured me softly.

But it was a lie, Leah might love me but she would never love me in the ways and depth that I loved her. I'd fallen in love with not only her, but the things she loved, the way her hair fell onto her shoulders, the crease of her smile, the blue of her eyes and the sound of her voice. Leah ran away from me when she'd promised me forever, now I'm sure someone else believed that promise of hers, it was one that always sounded so sweet at the time but cut like a knife when it was ultimately shattered. 

"No. Not like I love her."

They couldn't even deny it, I'd handed her my heart on a silver platter and she'd let it sit there and so it would until time ran away from me and the clock chimed signifying final hour. 

"It will get easier though," Lucy said.

"Can I stay with you guys until I go back?" I asked, still the tears ricocheting. 

"Of course," Keira replied. 

I shouldn't have ever left Leah but that would have been trapping her and she was like a bird in the highest trees of a rainforest; she longed to be free. Caging to her to a life with me would have been like putting a paraquet in a zoo enclosure, forever kept to survive but never truly living. 

Maybe her and Jordan were meant to be, maybe this is what life had decided. The thoughts shook me, physically paining my heart and leaving me helpless because what can one do when they have given themselves to someone and they've never been returned? I was hollow now. I didn't have Ingrid to make me laugh, make me live and distract me and I didn't have Leah to prove that love was worth it. 

Love was the biggest mistake one can make. But it's permanent, love isn't like a pencil line you can rub out, it's going to be there forever. People hand it out far too carelessly for what it truly is, love makes or breaks a person. 

Leah was my definition of love, she had made me complete and whole; she'd made me a see a point in life and recovery. She'd made me a person. Then she'd broken me, easier than snapping a pencil into two. Now I was just a figure.

She owned so much of my heart that it should have been called hers, my heart was her property. 

I'd always known that Leah ruined me slightly, I always knew she'd be my final downfall, she was the only one who possessed the bullets that slotted into the gun to be my cause of death. 

As much as I tried to ignore it and push everything down, there'd always be so much of me waiting for her to come back, it would never change. The scenery might, those who bring a slight brightness to may days might, but she never would. This was my forever. 

My forever missing Leah. 

Missing felt like an understatement, it wasn't a slight yearning of my heart for her. It was my entire heart and my entire being. Everywhere I went, I automatically saved her a seat or searched for her bright blue eyes which had always been drawn to mine the past, but not anymore. 

Every time I wanted to say something to her, the feeling had been so overwhelming I'd drowned in the words so I'd written them. I had a box of my thoughts for Leah, a box she'd never read because she didn't care. The time would seem too much for her, she had a life to live that wasn't with me. She had love to give unlike the love she'd given to me. 

It left me feeling like I'd forced the love from her, like I'd forced her to love me. 

Lucy and Keira said nothing else that night, they knew I'd been torn apart, they knew that Ingrid had tried to stitch me back together, they now knew it had failed. 

There was nothing they could say; no word written in any dictionary, no line that had been spoken by a single poet, no music that had ever been composed, that could make any of this okay. They couldn't end the war that was being fought in my head, the troupes had lined up again and they were firing harder than ever.
No one even knew what they were fighting for anymore, it was all pointless at the end of the day. What was the point in Leah teaching me to love when she ran from the love she'd taught? She was a teacher who hated her own results. 

Life after that night had never been quite the same, it was all clouded over by my mind. People would laugh and I'd just hear noise when before I'd heard happiness. People would smile and I'd just see faces. 

The months passed and yet nothing. I'd achieved some of the greatest things in my career yet they were nothing because I didn't have my person to stand by my side or watch as I gave my speech. Everyone clapped but it meant nothing because my person wasn't there clapping. 

I'd left Leah to save her and I'd done that, but I didn't know how badly I'd scar myself in the process. But I'd do it all again if it meant saving the one I loved.