Runaway Cleo

Ch. 14: Did you have to let me go?

I woke up the next morning feeling cold. It wasn't a nice cold, it was over bearing, practically freezing.

I try to find Cleo on her side of the bed and I notice that it's empty. I open my eyes slightly and my heart breaks. She isn't anywhere around here. I check the clock on my phone and see that it is 7:14am.

I walk downstairs and see that a breakfast was set up for me, a pretty flower and all. It's adorable so I sit down and eat with a smile on my face.

I walk to the bathroom to brush my teeth and use the toilet when I see the letter.

It's neatly placed on my bathrooms counter and I see my name written on it. I can feel my heart beat faster and my brain just imagines what the words could possibly be.

Instead of opening it, I brush my teeth and try to distract myself but my thoughts always came back to Cleo.

Around 8:30, I break. Tears fall down my face as I open the letter. Inside are neatly folded papers and I pull them out individually, opening them as I go.

Each one has a number on it, so I put them in that order and begin to read.

"Christian, words can't begin to explain the amount of joy you've brought into my life. You gave me so much love to last me a whole life time. Whenever you think of me remember, I'm not in pain anymore. I'm okay. All I've cared about in the past 6 months are your feelings so now I spare you the hurt. I'm dying in less than a week and that could happen every night o go to sleep. I've decided to take our account and go on a trip and just wait it out. I wouldn't be able to die peacefully knowing you'd be the one finding my body so instead, I want you to be the one who remembers me happy. Enclosed is a flash drive. I've documented our time together, before and after the days of sickness. I need you to know that I will always love you because you are the only one that I have ever loved. Christian Baker, of the United States of America, I love you. I will forever love you. I'm not scared of the inevitable death that will come onto me. I'm not afraid of anything right now. So do not be scared for me. Do not come for me. I am okay. I love you and I'm okay. Live well, Chris. -Cleopatra Lynn"

She left me. She left me and now she's gone. She loves me. She loves me and now she's gone.

•••

I cried for hours, until I had no tears left to cry.

It's not until around 12:30 that I got up from my bathroom floor shaking, and plugged in the flash drive.

It opens up playing a song that we both love by muse,  which makes me smile.

I lean back into my desk chair and watch the slideshow begin. It begins with a screen that has our names on it... then to a screen with 2 dates, {02/16/17- 08/12/17}. That last date was today. She really just recapped all of our time together.

Pictures began to flood the screen. Some of them I don't recognise and others I remember from late nights out.  She thought of everything.

I'm not sure when it began happening but I was sobbing. The video ended and I was about to turn it off before I saw Cleo on the screen.

She looked beautiful. Her voice cracked as she began talking and I became mesmerised, " Christian Baker, you know me better than anyone else so I want you to remember me better than any one else. You know that I am not good at words. You know that I am not good at trust. But I told you my deepest secrets and I fell in love with you. My life is ending soon. Everything about us will be forgotten and no one will know our story. I'm okay with that. Chris. Never forget, I love you. Stay strong. I love you."

And with that, she was gone. I will always have these last words of Cleo and I will always love her.

"I'll never forget Cleo. I will always love you," I whisper into my dimming bedroom to no one in particular. And somehow I swear, I heard someone say that they loved me too.