Maybe in Another Life

If Only I Could Rewind Time and Start Over

They say that right before you pass on, your life flashes before your eyes. The same is true when you find out that the person you love most in the world is no longer in your world. The only difference was, when I heard the words leave Mrs. Kim's lips, rather than seeing my past flash before my eyes, I saw my future- our future. Mine and Taehyung's, appear and disappear in a matter of seconds.

Through streams of tears and broken sentences, the Kim's tried their best to explain.

It had only happened 3 weeks before I got home. Taehyung didn't return after being out with Bella for a few hours. They hadn't thought anything of it because when the weather was nice, and the days were longer, Tae and I had spent lots of evenings together riding horses or sitting by the lake behind my house. But when Bella returned without Taehyung, they started to worry.

By the time they found him, yards away from the normal trail, it was too late.

I couldn't listen to the rest. I saw their mouths moving but the sound was muffled and my mind was hazy. I felt paralyzed, blank, empty. I felt that if I tried to focus, it would become real and not a nightmare I had accidently fallen into.

Denial flooded my brain. I misheard. It was a mistake. But as the tears streaming down my face mirrored the tears of the Kims, it was clear that there was no mistake.

"He's...he... d-died?" The words pierced my heart like daggers of ice and my whole body went cold. Numb. I hear screams all around me and feel my chest getting heavy. I look up to Mrs. Kim who is being held by her husband, but the sound isn't coming from them. It's me. Like an out of body experience, I see myself fall to the ground, hear the screaming, and see the complete and utter horror on my face as I gasp for air.

This couldn't be real. He promised me he'd be here when I got back. How was he just... gone? Like I had dreamt him up. There had to be a mistake because Taehyung promised me. In all the years I had known Taehyung he'd always kept his promises. Why did this have to be the one he couldn't keep. Why did he have to leave me?

💜

The weeks following Taehyung's passing were just a continuous rising and setting of the sun. If it hadn't been for that, I wouldn't know when one day ended and another began. I couldn't eat, think, function, or even get out of bed. I cursed my heart for continuing to beat despite having been ripped in two. I cursed my body for waking up every day, pulling me away from beautiful dreams of Taehyung and pushing me into a real life nightmare. My parents tried to intervene, telling me in the gentlest way possible that I couldn't carry on like this. They were right- I couldn't. I didn't want to. What was there to hold on to when half your soul has died? What was the point of being here when every inch of this place reminds you that you are no longer whole.

The Kims moved from our property a few months later. My second family; more like my first when I really thought about it. They sold the horses; Taehyung's father claimed he was getting too old to continue horse training and upkeep, but I knew, like me, they couldn't bear the constant reminders of Taehyung.

The spring that followed Taehyung's passing, I decided to stay with my grandmother permanently. She was getting older and while she was just as lively as ever, my parents thought the move would be good for both of us. I needed a change in scenery. There were no traces of Taehyung there. No remnants of places we'd been and time we spent together. And if I never had to return home, I wouldn't be reminded of him.

Or so I thought.

I dreamt about Taehyung every single night. About meeting him again, and being with him again. But the dreams were never in the present.. It always seemed to be somewhere else- the future or another life entirely. And every morning I would wake up wondering if there would ever be a chance for forever for us.