slide away {lorenzo berkshire}

83. ghostin

"I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief."
- C.S. Lewis

~~~~~

Cassie Avery

The world didn't end when Lorenzo died.

That was the cruelty of it.

Everything that had mattered was gone, and the world just... kept going. Lorenzo was dead and the air still worked, my heart still beat, my lungs still dragged breath in and out like they hadn't lost their purpose.

Time kept passing without him. Days. Weeks. Like it had just forgotten to wait for him.

I only knew that because people kept telling me. Because the light outside his window changed. Because the food they left on his bedside table went from hot to cold before someone came to take it away again.

At first I was furious. At everyone. At no one. At my mother. At myself. At every time I'd wasted time and stupidly said 'just friends'. At the way I'd been so afraid of losing him that I'd never fully allowed myself to have him - and then lost him anyway.

That irony was unbearable.

I screamed when I realised that.

I screamed until my throat bled. I screamed at walls. At floors. At people who tried to touch me. I screamed Lorenzo's name like if I said it loudly enough, the world would have to give him back just to make me stop.

I threw things. I broke things. I clawed at anyone who tried to hold me down, my nails scraping their skin, my teeth snapping like an animal. I didn't recognise myself. I didn't care.

No one could make me stop. Lorenzo was the only person who knew how, who knew what to say.

You don't need to apologise to me.

I'm going to hold your hand now.

I waited for it. I held my breath for it.

It never came.

I remembered screaming that it was my fault. I remembered someone telling me it wasn't. I remembered laughing at them.

Of course it was my fault.

My mother's hand had held the knife.

If I hadn't betrayed their side. If I hadn't loved him. If I hadn't existed - none of this would have happened.

I wasn't sleeping properly. Not really. It was more like I was drifting in and out of consciousness.

Waking up was the worst part.

Every time, there was a split second - just one - where I forgot. I'd turn toward his side of the bed. My mouth would open to say his name.

And then it would hit me.

The knife. The blood. The way his body hit the stone.

And then the screaming would come back again before I could stop it, ripping out of my chest like my body was watching it happen all over again.

I thought about that moment over and over - the way I'd run towards him, the way he'd been running towards me too. The way I'd finally been ready to say it back. The words I'd been so scared of, the ones that felt dangerous and fragile and huge.

I love you.

I'd been so close.

That thought destroyed me worse than anything else. That he had died thinking I didn't love him too, all because I was too fucking scared to say it back. That felt ridiculous now.