Love Is Timeless

Chapter One: Alone

The words echoed in my mind, and the sight of the letters on the phone screen reappeared. "How is it that my heart yearns for you, but I can't stand being around you?" 

"It's because you probably don't," I replied, gulping down tears back then. 

I lay, looking at the ceiling, questioning every amount of my existence and everything I worked for in the last two years. Meaningless. It was all meaningless. I already knew that, of course. I always knew I loved Michael more than I should've. I always knew that I loved him more than he did. I always knew that the day would come when he would leave. But how was it that that didn't help, even in the slightest? Shouldn't that have prepared me? 

Tears no longer filled my eyes as I struggled to breathe. Everything seemed shadowed. Everything seemed so wrong. I couldn't think straight. No, I never could since it happened just a week ago. I closed my eyes and went to a place I hadn't been in months - his arms. I saw his smile, covered in braces and his pale skin and his perfectly blue eyes. I saw the happiness in them - abundant, and it was because of me. I never knew how I could make someone happy like that, to where someone's eyes would light up and their smile would be full. I felt breath as he looked down at my face. His blonde hair was wavy and messy at the front and short in the back. He was wearing his gray and green hoodie. He hadn't worn it in so long. Then I remembered the last time he wore it - Valentine's Day, the best day of my life. 

"I want to marry you." Michael said through a text message, "I know that'll be the best day of my life, whenever it is. Two years, five years, seven years, ten years... it'll be worth the wait. I'm already calling you Annabel Anderson in my mind," he said after a day of school, hugs, gifts, and secretly cuddling on the couch when his mom wasn't watching. "Thank you for the best day, my wife." 

And now, he can't stand being around me. Though, I didn't feel any differently from then. I was sadder. Somehow, though, I felt I loved him more. Maybe it was a normal reaction. But I knew I would have to change. Micheal will never love me again. And I would change to who I was supposed to be, someone who would stop loving him, as he stopped loving me. 

I would, right?