Life Is A Living Mess

Chapter 5 Can't Breathe Without You

In case you ever foolishly forget:
I am never not thinking of you.
—Virginia Woolf, Selected Diaries
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Antonio Romano

"Man, you have to get out, get some fresh air. You look like shit." Theo's words barely registered, my mind was occupied with watching pictures of her.

Towards the end, when I took care of her, I took some pictures of Leah. When she didn't notice or when she slept, I took pictures, a lot of them. I didn't know why, I just did it. Maybe subconsciously, I knew that those pictures would be the only thing I had to remember her by.

I was never found of taking photos, not of myself or anyone, but now, I wish I had taken photos with her, especially when she looked happy and was in my arms.

Did she ever look happy in your arms?

I...fuck, I don't know.

One of Olivia's songs began to play through my phone. Lost Without You by Freya Ridings. Once when Leah was asleep I took her phone and went through it and transferred everything she had to mine, her photos, music, everything.

And now I was a fucking, pathetic idiot who stared at her pictures and listened to her songs.

Fuck, what happened to me?

"Man, I know you're...yeah. But it has been two years. If we didn't find her the first month or the first year, we won't probably find her—"

"I will fucking find her! I don't care how much time has passed, I don't care how long it will take until I find her. I will continue to search until I die." I growled at Theo, turning off my phone, and went up to my office.

I had hidden a fifty-year-old whiskey bottle in my office since the guys cut me off two months ago when they found me almost passing out from the amount of alcohol I had consumed. And since I had high tolerance of alcohol, it meant I had drunken a lot, not just a few bottles.

It had been two years since I had seen her face, heard her voice, touched her face, kissed her tears. And my soul couldn't take it, it couldn't take that it had been ripped apart from her. For a second, it just wanted to rest, to be able to breathe without pain.

Fuck baby, I can't breathe without you.

The only problem, the poison didn't make me forget her, it made me crazy. It made me see Leah, feel her, hear her, but then she disappeared. So in order to keep her with me, I kept drinking.

With the bottle in my hand, I quickly went up to my room. I didn't even need to hide it since I only had one "babysitter". Theo was babysitting me and the rest of the guys were working, half of them kept our business in track and the rest searched for Olivia.

Fuck, Olivia, come back to me. Please, I can't live without you.

I closed the door behind me and locked it. Unscrewing the bottle, I walk past my speaker.

"Why don't you ever listen to music in the car?" Leah's sweet voice asked me.

With an intoxicated mind, I could feel her pain, the pain I had caused her, the pain that made me lose her. Without a second thought, I turned on the speaker. Expecting Santino Le Saint's voice to blare through the speakers, instead I was meet by Hate Myself by NF. The song seemed fitting since I absolutely loathed myself, so I didn't change it. I brought the bottle to my lips.

Leah, I will find you. Even if it means searching for you the rest of my life.

I will find you and I will never let you go. 

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"Open up! Open the fucking door!" Theo's annoying voice growled through the door. When he wasn't met with an answer, he kept banging, making my headache worse. I reluctantly opened my eyes with a groan.

"Fuck, I'm coming. Shut up," I growled, rolling out of the bed. Barely waiting for me to unlock the door, he stormed in with a frown. Noticing my tired eyes, his eyes softened.

He cleared his throat. "Were you asleep?"

"Yeah," I sighed, walking back to my bed in order to sit down. He nodded, his eyes wandered around my room before snapping to the empty whiskey bottle beside the foot of the bed.

"Antonio..."

"Chill, it was only one bottle, didn't do me a jack shit, it only put me to sleep." I ran my hand through my hair.

"Good. It feels like you haven't slept for years. You need to sleep, you can't think clearly." Disapproval covered his features. Not really expecting a response from me, he continued. "You need to come down, we've some information regarding Olivia."

W-what?

My heart stopped beating, everything in me stopped.

"W-what did you say?" The words were barely able to leave my mouth. My mind was sure that I had heard him wrong. For two years and two months, there was no trace of her.

"Some new information regarding Olivia has come up. Come." Smiling, he turned around and left my room. My mind screamed at me to run, but my legs were paralysed. Slowly, my body began cooperating with my mind. I leaped out of my bed towards the door, following Theo.

The guys were sitting around the dining table with papers in front of them. Silence fell upon when I sat at the head of the table. Theo sat beside me with a small grin.

"Show him," Theo said with excitement. Diego took a long drag from his cigarette, not reaching for the picture in front of him. Colt gave him a confused look before taking the picture and sliding it over to me with a smirk. I stared at the picture, not really understanding what I was seeing. It was a picture of two teenage girls smiling, lifting their coffee mugs up for the camera.

"What is this?" I asked, puzzled, still staring at the picture.

"Look closely behind the girls," Collin said with a cheery voice. Staring more closely, I could make out a woman with an apron, her head slightly down, gazing at the coffee she was making behind the counter. The woman's wavy dark hair was tucked behind her ear, letting me see her beautiful face.
Leah?
"We found her."

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