Tearing Paper

Silver Moonlight

Enjoy c:

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“You still love me.”

“Ella, listen, we talked about this. I can’t—“

“If you don’t, you won’t even be here.”

“Ella—“ Nate lost his words as those hazel orbs stared back at his green ones, almost pale with lifelessness. Gone was the cheerful soft voice Ella used to have. Her beauty, too, had slowly been consumed by the redundant sleepless nights wasted crying, just dialling Nate’s number and leaving voice mails about how much she needed him.

Nate could go crazy.

But he knew this was for the best. This would be a better option than spending his entire life marrying a fiance he did not love.

“Ella—we are young,” Nate said in a pleading voice, part of him could not bear seeing her cry again. “And you’re an amazing girl. You’ll find a much better guy than me. Please—let me go.”

“I really love you, Nate,” Ella burst into tears. The city walk at night was quiet and dim. Nate stared at the river beneath the bridge he was standing on—its water reflecting their figures perfectly under the silver moonlight. Regret crushed over him.

There used to be two of them.

He never had any other girlfriend before. He forgot when they started becoming friends—he could not remember a day in his life where he did not know her… So he thought it was easy to love her as a woman. Not a friend. Their families were close. Arranging a wedding would be as simple as flipping his hand, but he let that chance slip out of his fingertips.

Because after six years together, the fool in him just realized that there was a big difference between loving someone and wanting to protect them.

“I’ll always love you, Ella… like a little sister. I’ll always be there for you, but I don’t think—“

“You’ve changed, Nate. You know how I can’t live without you. We can’t be friends again, please.”

There she went again. Ella had been such an avid believer of happy endings. She thought Nate was her knight in shining armor. She thought she would crumple to the ground without him.

He knew there was so much more inside her.

“I’m sorry,” Nate closed his eyes and tried to erase the image of her crying from his head.

“Then I’m sorry too.”

Cold as ice and without warning, Ella spread her arms and let the night wind blew right at her. Nate was too surprised to even let out a single scream when that girl leaped towards the edge of the bridge in front of her—

Jumping into the endless abyss of water beneath them.

-

Nate stared at the silver moonlight hovering over Namiri Island as he kept his phone in his grip.

The moon had never been this beautiful since the night Ella tried to kill herself.

He was never able to redeem himself from the guilt haunting him. Discovering that Ella did not die, but suffered from severe injuries and hypothermia did not alleviate it at all.

Maybe, it would be better if Ella made it to a better place.

She was too good for Nate anyway.

“Are you still busy with your work? We are still hoping that you’ll visit us in town. Ella will feel so much better.”

Nate gave up on thinking of a reply for that text. He knew Ella’s mother—as well as her father—never blamed him for the incident. He had known them all his life—he wasn’t afraid of them.

So what are you afraid of, Nate?

Realizing that after all this time without her, you actually miss her?

But you don’t love her.

You like Dianne.

Or do you?