All For You

𝟒𝟐.

𝐋𝐞𝐨

Two weeks later.

My eyes were puffy and my apartment was dimly lit.

I didn't know what time of day it was, or pretty much the time of day at the moment. The curtains of my apartment had been closed for God knows how long I could count.

People came by and knocked, but I never really answered much either because I was too stuck on the couch to even get up or because I was probably too scared to face the reality that my life had now become.

First, Iza and now my Mum.

I couldn't deal with any of it.

I wanted to die. I found it when I thought of death often, I'd realise I never really had any other reason to live other than the fact that about five blocks away lived the love of my life and I had lost her because of my shitty brother.

A knock accompanied my door, I turned to look at it with a hesitant expression. I slowly approached it, to make sure no one heard me enough to get the hope that I would open the door. No one had knocked in a few days, almost everyone had given up except for one.

"It's Aran," The voice behind the door said, a little hope shining through his shattered tone. "Please open the door, Leo."

He had never given up on me.

He came over to my door almost every day, begging for me to open the door and the answer was the same all the time. "No, I can't do it," I confessed, my voice half angry and sad. "I'm sorry, Aran. I really am."

I shook my head, knowing he couldn't see me before I pushed a fist against the wood of the door. "I don't understand why you had to say all of that to Iza when you know well enough you didn't do any of that!" He complained through the door, his broken voice now more livid with anger.

"It's better this way, Aran," I explained, a hard bitter look on my face. "It's better she hates me rather than in love."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" He yelled out as he kicked the door. "You're going through hell and she is going through hell, how is it any better?!"

"She'll get over me and find a better guy," Although I never will find any girl better than her. "I'd ruin her the longer I stayed."

Aran muttered something incomprehensible under his breath before he sighed heavily. "You honestly need to stop putting all this shit on you when it's not your fault."

"But it is my fault!" I shouted out, my gruff hoarse voice echoing against the walls of my messy apartment. "Everything has been my fault! First Rhys, and now my Mum!"

Aran stopped thinking for a second, his annoyed voice turning softer and more gentle. "Your Mum?"

"Two weeks ago. Cancer," I explained, my voice breaking once again. My eyes squint shut at the pain that shot through me when I remembered the thought of the last time she spoke to me, the idea that I could've said something more or maybe realised sooner. Then maybe I'd talk to her more than often, and maybe I'd fly over and spend her last days with her.

That way she would have someone with her, but instead she died alone in her room. A picture of us in her hands as she took her last breath.

"All this time, I thought it was only about Iza," Aran admitted with a guilt-ridden look in his voice as he paused. "I'm sorry Leo, she was a beautiful soul."

"It's okay," I answered, with a small sob as I broke down once again into a mess for the third time today. Aran stood on the other side of the door, listening to my silent sobs.