Breathe

seventeen

[ cole ]

"Nora, I'm so sorry."

I bury my head in my hands.

She plops down onto the grassy patch beside me.

After telling her that I needed to talk, she didn't hesitate to take me to her favorite private spot, even after all I had done.

She's still quiet.

The stream runs across rocks beside us. I wonder if our pebbles managed to remain in the same spot where we threw them the first time. Probably not.

"Please, Nora, just say something." My hands smash down onto the ground beside me. A rock makes a small cut into my palm.

She cringes.

My heart twists.

"You've been nothing but kind. I'm so sorry."

"For what?" Her beautiful eyes are wide.

I can't find the answer, even though the list seems countless.

"You breathe in unspoken things, Cole." She sighs. "Just speak your mind."

I keep the air trapped in my lungs for as long as possible. The truth is that I've never been good with words. I don't know how to express myself, but she inspires me.

"I think-" My mind grasps for the right things to say.

"I think you're made up of starlight and raindrops." My heart feels as if it'll break through my ribs. "And I'm just made up of old trophies and useless piles of cash."

Did I make sense?

"And you, Nora," I speak in such an unfamiliar way, "you are poetry."

I shake my head. "And I'm just a magazine."

She looks at me. I've never seen someone look so pleased and sad at the same time.

"You breathe in unloved things, and I'm one of those things I think."

I ramble on, trying desperately to explain myself to her.

"I don't mean that you love me. But you showed me love when no one else would. You took a chance on me, and I'm eternally grateful for it."

She keeps staring. I don't interrupt the silence.

A frog croaks in the distance and she laughs. It seems strange to laugh at a time like this.

Finally, she speaks. "Cole-"

"I know what you're going to say. I know I shouldn't have went to that party. Those people were mean to you. But if anything, it made me realize all of the things that I could lose. It's like there was a hole inside of me."

She shakes her head, and her straight hair frames her face almost perfectly.

"I wasn't going to say that."

"Then what? I know I did a lot of wrong, but-"

"Cole, stop talking." She leans over towards towards me.

Her words become slow and quiet. "I was going to tell you that you're beautiful."

My brows wrinkle. Girls don't normally call guys beautiful, but I'm used to her switching things up by now.

"And that I'm not poetry, and you're not a magazine."

She places her hand under my chin. "But you are special, Cole Woods. You mean something."

I can no longer feel the inside of me. It's like my heart no longer exists.

"I have to go." She gets up just like that, with no explanation, no goodbye.

I'm losing her.

"Nora, wait."

I match her movements.

"I can't."

She walks away, and I know I can't hold her back anymore.

"Bye," I whisper, more to myself than her.

No one tells me bye back.

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[A/N]
does this chapter make sense?
can you tell who is talking?

also, I think it's coming to an end, guys