SHE CRIED THAT NIGHT.
They were ugly tears; big fat droplets dripped from her eyes like a leaky faucet, and her sadness swam in them. But the sadness never left like it was supposed to.
Her chest ached. There was a hole where her heart had been. He had taken it with him when he left and now she was no longer a girl but a ghost.
Heartache was a terrible thing. It was brutal and unforgiving in all the ways that fist fights were, all blood and gore. She was the victim.
The ghost lay on the hardwood floor for a while. Perhaps it lasted mere minutes, hours, or days, but to her it felt like an eternity.
She didn't think that her muscles knew how to move any longer, so they surprised her when her hands pushed her body off of the cold floor and again when her legs supported her when she stood.
Heartache was a terrible thing.
*
HE WAS THERE AT the diner, the one they had once claimed as theirs. He had been the king and she his queen, but now it seemed that he has found himself a new one.
Her friend snarled and tugged on the ghost's sleeve.
Stop looking at him. Something as hideous as that has got to be bad for your eyes, the ghost's friend said.
The ghost looked away, but only to humor her friend. He wasn't really hideous. In fact, his chocolate skin, dark hair that fell in waves, and white teethed smile was all the rage in their small town. It was sad that there wasn't anything better, really.
In the car her friend blasted the radio and rolled down the windows. The ghost didn't speak, not when she was teetering on the edge of falling apart again.
Heartache was a terrible thing.
Her friend understood so all she did was rest a comforting hand on the ghost's thigh.
*
APPARENTLY THERE WAS SOMETHING better than him.
The Better Thing arrived in their small town on a foggy and damp morning. The ghost had watched with wariness and fascination as he hauled cardboard boxes labeled sloppily with Sharpie words like KITCHEN and LIVING ROOM into the house next to hers. It was that same day that he officially earned the title as her neighbor.
It was a foreign concept to the ghost.
If anybody had pointed out the way she had studied the condition of his hair after surviving the wetness of the air (damp and slightly frizzy) or the way his t-shirt had lifted to reveal a sliver of tan skin when he stretched, she would have blushed and denied it. It was because a part of her was ashamed to have been looking at a boy that way when the previous one was still such a prominent part of her past.
All the ghost had to do was keep in mind that he was exactly that: a part of her past. He has passed. He was past.
But heartache was a terrible thing and so it didn't let her forget.
*
THE BETTER THING MADE her laugh more than he should've had the right to, and she was eventually given the freedom to enter his house whenever she wanted and vice versa. They exchanged ideas and thoughts from the windows of their rooms and she learned things about him. She learned things like his passion for music even when his parents didn't approve, and that he looked better with glasses than anyone else she has ever known.
And she learned that she was slowly falling for the Better Thing.
The girl was afraid. Heartache had done that to her (it was a terrible thing) and it held her back whenever she wanted to speak out and tell him.
But the Better Thing had learned things about her too. Things like the way she blushed when he said something flirty and the way she would trust him with her everything. Even at two a.m. in the morning when the Better Thing had called spontaneously to see if she was up for an adventure she had said yes. She had opened the door at that hour dressed in her pajamas with a large jacket over it and asked: where to?
So he had recognized her wistful gazes at the Poisonous One; the one that had left her. The Better Thing had silently promised to heal her heart, and to do so he had kissed her. It had been quick and sweet and in the quiet atmosphere of the library sandwiched between the aisles labeled Mystery and Fantasy.
The girl had froze, but the Better Thing's hands had felt warm and soft against her face, and she liked the way his eyelashes brushed against her cheeks almost as much as the feeling of his lips felt against her own.
So she had kissed him back.
*
THE GIRL KNEW NOW that heartache was a terrible thing. Sometimes it didn't fade from a person for weeks, months, or even years, but there was a cure out there. The cure was different for everyone; for some it's a girl and for others a boy. Or if you were lucky you had multiple ones waiting for you nestled in a bustling city or the sleepy countryside.
But there was a cure and the girl had fortunately found hers; he was her Better Thing.
So yes, heartache was a terrible thing, but it was something that wasn't forever. The girl had learned a powerful lesson: you can get your heart back. Even if it felt like the person who had caused the heartache had run away with it in their hands, they hadn't. Not really. Because all your heart needed was a breather, and once it was done with its vacation, it would come back. All you had to do was wait for it.
*
[dedicated to chelle who is too cool to be real]
similar format to 'love me again' / don't know if there will be a playlist though / have a wonderful, magnificent, beautiful, lovely day and night
[if you didn't cringe i would like to congratulate you]
