Beauty

7

the next morning cameron was gone. he left at 3:00am and only stalled to get a small something then left. he cried as he passed the border into the next state. knowing grace was forever gone to him. he had had no clue where he was staying that month and had no plan to return. he didn't know her last name. he didn't know how he would ever find her again. and then it hit him. he wouldn't

grace woke to flowers on her doorstep, the brightest she'd ever seen. the most lively and beautiful flowers she had ever seen and those daffodils on her doorstep made her realize he was gone. she had fallen to the ground in loud sobs and screams. as if someone were hurting her. and they were. she felt a hole tearing in her chest, the pain too strong for her now weak self. she felt starved. she felt parched. she felt as though everything in her at once was breaking and tearing. 

because that goodbye was as painful as if every goodbye ever said to her was being said again- all at once. 

so the beautiful flowers ceased to be her favorite. she kept them until they died, though. and long after they died. they sat in her room, dead. as she felt. she stopped doing nearly everything and only ate or bathed. or read. she used to never read. but now it was all she did because anything was better than being in her mind where all she thought of was him. every time she closed her eyes she saw him and it brought on waves of tears. more like tsunamis in her eyes. she was broken by him. 

she didn't sleep anymore. not since every time she closed her eyes he was there. 

and she felt the greatest pain she'd ever felt thinking of him. even though the story behind her eyes was that she was left by her parents. 

now there was a greater mist in her eyes. a new mystery that she never wanted anyone to ever ask about again. 

"grace," her grandmother called. grace wouldn't reply. "please eat this" her grandmother would say as she walked into grace's room to give her a plate of toast and eggs and applesauce. 

grace sighed, fighting her pained chest and rose to greet the food. it was the first she'd eaten in months. 

it wasn't nearly as satisfying as she wished it would have been. she wanted to feel like he made her feel. she desired to feel the way the taste of his lips against her felt. she yearned to feel again in general. 

and god she hated being so vulnerable. she hated living the way she was. 

her heart rate rose rapidly sending a panic attack into her system. but it was more than that she ripped at her room. throwing pictures to the floor, shattering glass on the ground, screaming through her numb throat. 

and suddenly she was running pain in her feet as she stormed away. she felt her surroundings scratching at her skin, branches reaching like hungered slaves for the last of the meal. her feet were aching and finally she collapsed at the waters edge and let out the most morbid scream anyone had ever heard. 

and the town heard. every last one knew it was the heartbroken girl. 

the glass in her feet now had scarred her. the cuts and scratches from the forest were in their burning stages and the pain didn't feel like anything. 

with all the pain she was feeling the saddest part is that she felt nothing bu the ache in her heart. 

and cameron found himself somehow searching for her in the crowds where he went. he realized he'd found where to stay and left. and he hated himself for that. he wanted his misty eyed girl back. he wanted to love her. 

he just wanted her to know how he loved her and that he was in just as much pain as she.