Meant To Be

Where Do Broken Hearts Go?

She said I'm falling down 

Oh, I'm halfway there, the lights are going out

I think she's falling down 

I think I'm falling down 

- Falling, from FOUR's fourth album, Already Gone 

I don't go to class the next day. I lay in bed and nap between bouts of crying. I continue to try to pinpoint where it all went wrong.

(I don't find an answer.)

In a fit of pettiness and anger I unfollow Holland on every social media platform I followed him on. I can't stand to see his face any more.

And then, an hour or so later, when I've absentmindedly opened tiktok or instagram and been immediately hit with pictures - with really incredible quality - of him kissing that girl, I delete every social media app off my phone. Then I turn my phone off.

Then I sleep some more.

I'm woken to the sound of a knock on my door.

"Cassie." It's Soph, cautiously opening my door a crack.

I sit up, wipe a hand over my face. "Yeah?" I say, voice rough from crying. I don't think Soph would have bothered me over nothing. It's the only reason I respond, instead of just lying pathetically in bed some more like I wanted.

"There's someone at the door for you." I meet her eyes. She nods, once.

"No." I say, crossing my arms.

"He flew all the way to talk to you," she says. I gape, betrayed at the thought that she might be taking his side. "I'm not saying you should forgive him," she says. "But you're the one saying you wanted answers. A little hard for you to get when you've turned your phone off and, I'd guess, deleted all your social media?"

I grab my phone and sulkily turn it on. "He hasn't texted me."

Soph shrugs. "I don't know. I'm just saying. If you wanted closure, this might be your shot. Your only shot." She gives me a sympathetic smile. "It's not like you're going to awkwardly run into him in the grocery store for a few months, or be assigned to a class project with him. This could be it."

Just the idea that I might never see Holland again has me standing up. It doesn't matter that I hate him - I still want to talk to him. (and maybe yell a little bit.)

I pull a hoodie on over my tshirt and tights and take a minute to smooth my hair down a bit in the mirror. Luckily, it's supposed to look sort of messy and wild, so it's not to bad. Or at least not to far from how I usually wear it.

I follow Soph down the stairs, trying not to let my heart pound to crazily inside my chest.

The door's closed. There's a little bit of satisfaction that lights inside me that none of the girls let him in to wait in the living room, that he's standing on our stoop right now (hopefully) running over his apology in his head.

I take a deep breath and open the door, and immediately have to try my hardest not to cry, immediately feel that hole in my chest open up again.

Because it's Holland. My Holland. Looking like shit - probably about as bad as I do, honestly - with his hair mussed and dark circles under his eyes.

"Cass." He says, and he sounds so broken that I want to let myself fall into his arms, want to wrap myself around him until he stops sounding like that.

But the images of him with that girl are branded on the back of my eyelids, as well as the past three days of silence, so I don't.

I don't.