Relapse / / h.s.

Chapter Thirty-One.

   I could barely keep up with my own thoughts as I drove back home. I don't know what it was or what had triggered it, but a heavy feeling had settled on my chest and was slowly moving down to the pit of my stomach.

   This was wrong. This was all wrong.

   How could I possibly even think about kissing Elena when Lily was still the only person in the entire world that I loved? How could I so much as gain feelings for Elena, when I still couldn't go one single day without thinking about Lily? How could I even be with anyone but Lily?

  My head was a back and forth- Lily. Elena. Lily. Elena- all the way to my apartment.

   "Look who's finally home." She stood in the doorway of our bedroom, her arms crossed over her chest. It was like she was taunting me- her being here, even though I hadn't seen her in weeks- seemed to only add onto the weight. It was the first step in getting the ball rolling.

  "Not today," I begged her. I couldn't handle it- not now. "I can't- I can't."

I plopped down on the couch after throwing my bag down by the door. An exasperated feeling settled in my chest. My thoughts swirled around my head a mile a minute and I could barely keep up with myself, let alone anything that was happening near me.

I didn't even notice Lily sitting beside me until she said, "you're stressing over nothing, you know."

I stared straight ahead at the darkness of the television screen. Lillian was sitting right next to me, but every time I tried to picture her face, I saw Elena instead. That couldn't happen. It couldn't.

"Harry," she tried again, her voice soft. "What are you so afraid of?"

I didn't answer her again, knowing that if I did my voice would betray me and I would potentially start to cry. But the answer came to my brain almost immediately. Forgetting.

I was afraid of forgetting her and everything we'd built together. I was afraid of forgetting the time we spent together while we still had it. I was afraid that one day I would just wake up and not be able to recall what she looked like or the way her laugh sounded when it echoed through our apartment.

Even now, some things were starting to disappear.

I could barely remember the smell of her perfume and her voice as she sounded next to me sounded like her usual self, but different. It wasn't right. Nothing seemed right.

"I'm not going to just disappear," she said gently. "You think you'd understand that by now."

I blinked away the fuzziness of my unsettled gaze and focused on her. I always remembered her before the cancer- the healthy her, but now it was like everything about her seemed worn down. She looked as exhausted on the outside as I felt on the inside.

"What?"

"I don't want to get all sappy, trust me," she sighed, resting her head in her hand as she leaned against the back of the sofa. "But everything about us- everything will stick with you. Trust me. I'm not going anywhere."

I put my head in my hands, clutching my hair between my fingers.

"You've already gone," I will myself not to cry. I know I have grown stronger over the last couple of months, but right now I feel like I am standing with my feet in the edge, getting ready to plunge into the unknown.