Thanatophobia (Manthony)

Chapter 33

Mitchel

A month later.

     Realizing it's time to let go is one of the worst feelings in the world. People spend years of their life doing whatever they can to achieve their dreams.

That could be finishing school, having kids, or finding someone to spend the rest of their life with.

I had two dreams. The first was to become successful. The second was to keep Christian by my side.

I had achieved both of those things. 

Christian and I worked hard in our relationship, but we took a lot more from each other than we gave.

Even when we weren't together, we always had each other's back. Anyone who knew us knew that we were a package deal.

There wasn't a Mitchel without a Christian, and there wasn't a Christian without a Mitchel. It was us against the world.

     As harsh as it sounded, sometimes I wished I could go back in time and not have told Christian I had feelings for him. 

At that age, we weren't as close as we were when we were sixteen, eighteen, or even twenty. Losing him then didn't sound as scary. The heartache would be immense, but I'd move on. He would move on. 

On the other hand, we would have never achieved the things that we did. It was a double-edged sword. 

Each time we broke up, we knew we would remain friends because we also knew that we would eventually get back together. That's just how it was. 

     There were times I was scared that I'd lose Christian for good, but he found a way of rekindling our relationship, and we bounced back as if nothing had happened in the first place. 

Now, all this time later, things were different, and not in the way Christian and I had hoped they would be. 

I realized that we were only hanging onto each other because it was what was familiar. We didn't know how to navigate a world where we weren't together. We depended on each other much more than either of us had realized. 

Someone had to let go, and as much as I didn't want to, I knew I had to be the one to walk away first. 

*****

     Christian walks into my room, not saying anything to me. He looked tired. "You okay?" I ask. 

"Yeah, I just need more sleep." He tosses his phone on my bed, collapsing face-first next to me. I sit up, setting my phone down next to me. "If you're not busy, I wanna talk to you." 

"I'm free to talk."  Christian says. He flips over, staring at the ceiling. 

"I want to break up." I whisper. That came out a lot faster than I had planned. 

The words felt foreign. I rehearsed them at least a hundred times in my head, but that didn't stop them from feeling wrong. 

"You what?" Christian asks. He immediately sits up, turning around to look at me.

My eyes immediately sting with tears. "Things haven't been the same between us since Travis died, and they haven't been the same since Jordan and Aaron...threatened you,"