Savior

The Girl who Leaves

Once you love someone, you can't unlove them. You don't get to decide to stop that feeling and you can't decide to feel that feeling. It creeps up on you –sinking into every pore, weaving into every vein, and taking your heart hostage- without permission because love is a disease. 

A disease that is unrelenting and vicious, one that leaves you shaking and quivering in its wake. Your bones liquid and your veins shot, every waking thought consumed by them. There is no cure.

Love is a disease and my disease is terminal.

But, I am like a bee drowning in honey. This love can only destroy me and it's absolutely masochistic of me to feel this about this broken woman, but I can't stop.

Because it's been a good three minutes since those eight letters slipped from my lips and although I wish I could swallow them back up and lock them away for good I can't deny how light I feel. As if this unfathomable weight has been lifted from the recesses of my gut and I can breathe properly for the first time in ages.

The words have festered on my tongue for over a month now, just lying in wait to finally weasel their way from my mouth. And now that they had... I'm light again.

Even if they had spurred from a fight.

Nothing but silence follows my confession. The wind seems to howl louder and the birds sing in response, but the one girl I want to hear from remains silent. The three words seem to literally hang above our heads –pulsating- demanding to be heard.

At first she looks confused –as if she is sure that she hadn't heard me right, but the more she takes in my flustered expression and shaking hands the more that realization clouds her face. She stumbles backwards slightly, as if my confession had actually knocked her back physically.

"I-you... Wh-what did you just say?" She looks stricken and confused like I am speaking another language, but I know perfectly well that she heard me.

"I think you heard me just fine." I don't dare repeat the words because I am 100% sure she would pass out from shock if I had.

I wasn't planning on just blurting it out like that but she was looking at me as if I was a stranger and I was coming down from the panic of not being able to find her and all I wanted to do was kiss her, but I remembered that I couldn't. So, I confessed.

I can practically see the wheels tuning in her head as she tries to grasp what I've just said. She stumbles back a bit, her eyes watering and chest rising and falling faster as panic settles in. Whether it's because she doesn't feel the same or because she does and is just scared, I'm not sure.

Either way, I have never felt more vulnerable.

"N-no, what..." She's grasping at straws and I can feel the little hope I had dying out, "I'm sure that I didn't hear you right... B-because there is no way that you just said what I – what I think you said..."

It's not cruelty that makes her say it, but fear. That doesn't quell the brunt my heart takes at the dismissal of my confession.

I realize that I have two options in approaching what is about to happen:

1. Take it back. Pretend that I was kidding or that I meant to say something else or even that I just regret saying it. Then we can move on with our lives in peace even though I will always hold this weight in my chest and will be constantly thinking about what had happened if I didn't take it back.

2. Own up to it. I can finally confess my feelings; tell her every thought, compliment, worry I have kept bottled up inside in the last six months of knowing her and lay it all out on the line. And then spend the rest of my life trying to make her love me even half as much as I do her.

And when her jade eyes meet mine –so clear and innocent, open yet guarded, I decide to go with the latter option.

I decide to stop her mumbling while I have an opening, feeling my own anxiety beginning to rise. I step towards her quickly, placing my hands on either side of her cheeks before she has a chance to react.

Because I already know her answer before she even begins to speak.

"I know you aren't ready to hear this or respond, but I just needed you to know. I love you. God... I am so in love with you it's maddening. And it's been killing me not to tell you that... And it just feels so fucking good to finally say that aloud."

Her whole body shivers from my words and she squeezes her eyes shut, sighing, and leaning into my hand. Her cheeks are pale but her heart is racing and I'm really fucking afraid that everything is about to crumble all around me.

She's silent for so long that all I can hear is the blood pumping through my body in time with my heart. I can tell she is waging some internal battle; trying to process my confession and her response.

I know she won't fall into my arms and admit her feelings, I don't even expect her to acknowledge them at all. As long as she doesn't just walk away I'll be okay. We'll be okay.

When she peaks again her voice is small and slightly shaky, but the stutter is gone, "Harry, you don't even know me."

Her eyes begin to glisten and the jade turns murky and I can start to feel claws sinking into my throat because I love this woman and all I want is to make her happy.

But she has to let me first.

"I do know you, Layla. I may not know your whole life story, but I know you," she is shaking head and tries to pull away, but I don't let her, "I know that you hate coffee even though you work in a coffee shop. I know that you bundle up when it's 70 degrees outside. I know that you love the rain and the smell of cinnamon and absolutely hate when someone is condescending.