When It Mattered ✔️

O N E

💜Picture of Gracie💜
O N E
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"When they're together, the world could fall apart around them and they'd never notice or care as long as they have each other."
― Simone Elkeles, Rules of Attraction
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There wasn't a single moment that I thought to myself that this could ever happen. In fact, I was sure that it wouldn't.

But I stood corrected.

They even plastered my university and class to it at the bottom. The only thing they didn't put was my name. But trust me, there'd be enough there to point it straight to me with enough sleuthing.

To say my stomach was in sickening swirls would be an understatement. It was more like a tsunami tide hitting again and again against my insides until it was nothing more than a pile of acidic goo, eating through my skin as I stood there in complete horror and shock.

My eyes read the glossy page over once more, hoping that maybe I was wrong and that this wasn't the piece we were asked to write our deepest regrets on. That it wasn't my piece -on confessing my love to someone I hadn't seen in two years- being read by god knows who.

It was.

"What? How?" I breathed out, squeezing the pages of the magazine in my curled up fists until they crinkled in protest.

"Your words moved me, Gracie." My teacher said, his concentration on correcting a students test. "There was no one else who deserved this more than you." He said, giving me a smile as if he hadn't single handedly destroyed my will to live.

"Oh," I said again with only breath as my life flashed before my very eyes.

Why me? Did I really deserve such cruelty?

"I'll see you on Monday, Grace." He dismissed me, turning back to the pile of tests on his desk.

"Uh-huh," I mindlessly replied, taking step after step on autopilot as my brain begun shutting down while walking down the hallway of the building.

"Gracie, I saw," I heard somewhere outside my subconscious as my world fell into complete darkness. "It's going to be okay," the voice said, trying to pull me out of the abyss as I reached the door to the parking lot. "Gracie, it's Raven. Your best friend. Are you able to hear me?"

"It's over," I felt myself say calmly as if my world hadn't just crumbled down to my feet. "He's going to see it. It's all over."

"Gracie, look at me." She placed her hands on my shoulders, snapping me out of the daze as her piercing grey eyes held my hazel ones. "Breathe." She ordered when my lungs stopped working for too long.

I shook my head, my eyes filling with dread, "I've forgotten how." I squeaked out, feeling my heart race faster in my chest in a panic.

Raven rolled her eyes, bringing back her hand before thrusting it towards me in a backhanded slap.

"Wait!" I stopped her hand before it could collide with my face, "I remember!" I breathed in deeply, proving it to her. Raven slapped like a mean drunk beating his poor blind old dog. Mercilessly.

She smiled, "Good. Now let's get some alcohol in you before you decide to check-out again." She looped her arm around mine, dragging me towards her plum-purple Jeep Wrangler.