Adelia

[6]

I haven't spoken to Adelia in a week and a half. One and a half weeks of creaks and crunches outside that send me running, in a dead, paranoid sleep to the back door. And I see no swaying legs or muffled glances or open hands when I get there. I see the dim stars that used to smile upon her. I think they miss her as well. I think they do more than that, actually, I think they mourn for her. And for me. As I blink blood-shot eyes to reveal that it was only the wind. There is no 'Delia. And maybe, just maybe, there never was. Or worse, there was and is and I bet she's starved. 

Maybe there was a young, beautiful, shy girl that just didn't care enough about the boy in red-rimmed glasses and bed-head hair who gave her tattoos and an over-abundance of food.

Mia has started coming into my room, when a noise knocks and I flail to a reluctant race. She'll quietly whisper, "Finny, she's not there, nobody's there." With a touch of sadness and exhaustion in her voice. Then I would groan to sleep and I don't think I would completely fall back. Just lie there, closed eyes, ache in my chest, and my head beating me to a pulp.

Adelia has not returned, that's what I say. But really, she has left. Left. On her own terms. With her swaying legs, she has skipped away from the brick house. Away from the delicate city lights. Away from me. And she has decided to do it. Maybe she escaped. Maybe she never wanted to be here all along. I should have let her escape. I really should have.

And instead, she had to go alone. She had waltz out into the cold world alone and I wonder if it was hard for her. I wonder if she looked into the glittering window one last time, pressed her fingers softly to the glass and took the last bit of my disheveled heart and went on her way. I wonder about her. I really do.