"Why is love so, so difficult?"
He turned to her, the question still lingering on his lips.
She turned to face the vast ocean before them, a peculiar smile playing on her lips.
"Love isn't difficult," she replied. "It's who you choose to love, that makes all the difference."
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The sun is beginning to rise, but Chlo has been awake hours before the coming of a new day. Silent, she lays, Derek fast asleep beside her. His arms around her torso, legs snaked in between hers and face buried in her neck.
She likes it best when he is peaceful and serene, when he is silent and wrapped securely around her. These moments have become the sole reason for her being. (To see him and know he is safe and okay and better than when he is awake and chased by his other demons.)
Chlo shifts in bed, pulls him closer to her - if that were even possible. They are as physically close as possible, but even from where she lays, she can feel the distance.
And then his alarm is ringing, and now Derek is awake. He sits up, startled and wide-eyed. The one thing that always amazes Chlo is Derek's reaction to being awoken - the same one, every single time.
He looks at her, plants a hurried kiss on her cheek and then he is off to the bathroom, off to the kitchen and then off to school. This is their usual morning. There is no space or time for anything else than their daily routine.
On May 26th, Derek comes home at the same time he has come home for the last two years. It is 6 PM and the sky is turning orange and red and yellow. Although, the house is dark. And Chlo is nowhere to be found.
Hesitantly he enters the house, calling her name. She does not answer and his fear begins to build up.
"Dammit, Chlo, where are you?" he screams to the empty apartment. But it is not empty.
Derek's gut tells him to enter the storage closet in the far back of their home. And so he does, apprehensive. Afraid of what he might find.
There, he finds her. Bleeding and unconscious, brown hair framed around her face. She is pale and her wrists continually bleed and there is a note resting atop her still body. But her chest is rising, falling, rising. She's still alive.
But he is so paralyzed. Fear. Confusion. Emotions coursing through him with such ferocity that not a single coherent thought seems to occur to him. The thought of calling for 911, calling for help, just seemed to pass him by.
Because there she was. The great love of his life, his one and only. Growing colder by the second, losing breath with each tick of the clock. And he is still and silent, like he has always been. He knows, he knows all the ways he has done her wrong.
He killed her.
So he remains quiet and paralyzed and for the last time, he fails her. He could have saved her, not only then, but so many times before, but he stood quiet and unable to do anything for the one woman he loved.
She is dead now, Chlo. Her green eyes are lifeless and the brilliant shine it once had is now lost in the sky. Her hands are lifeless and limp and cold and blue, but all Derek yearns is to hold them forever. But he cannot and now, all he has left are her words.
----
" Derek, my love.
I don't know where I did you wrong or how or when or why. I do not know why, for all these years, all you've done is keep me at an arm's distance when all I wanted was to hold you near me. I just wanted to know you trusted me and loved me and cared enough to actually talk to me. But you see, my love, I know it was difficult. For you, understanding and knowing and accepting has always been difficult.
And so for me, loving you proved to be difficult. I just wanted you to take down your walls, so maybe I could bring mine down too. But you wouldn't, so neither could I. And I guess this was how we decided to live, together but apart.
I know leaving like this seems a horrible decision, at best. But I could not bear the thought of living without you, no matter how difficult the whole ordeal seemed to be. I still loved you. I still love you, even now that I'm rotting. So, you see, I'd rather die than live without you. But I couldn't continue living and loving the way we did either.
So I'm sorry if this was my only way out.
Please remember that I love you. I'll miss you. I've always missed you, Derek.
Yours forever,
Chlo."
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A/N: I haven't written in so long!!!!! :( Also, nobody was supposed to die but oh well..writing about dying is my favourite hobby :-) And I apologise for the title erhg?
YOU ARE READING
Shot In The Dark.
Short Story"and maybe in the end, you'll be another memory, you'll be nothing but a story to tell."