Love You Long Time (Duncan Keith)

28| Let Me Go

Duncan

I go over to Brent's to help him and Dayna set up for a little get together they were hosting. We usually hosted a bunch of these but with the lockout it's been hard. So we have a much overdue party, and since Brent was my best friend I got stuck helping him.

"Are you ever going to bring a girl to one of these things" he asks.

"I am bringing a girl" I smirk and he rolls his eyes.

"She's not yours Duncan" he says.

"Don't remind me" I mumble.

"Are you ever going to get over her" he wonders. I know he wants me to be happy, but I know I'm not going to be happy unless I'm with her.

"Probably not" I admit.

"You can't beat yourself up forever. Yes, you messed up. But life goes on. There's many other good girls out there" he claims.

"Maybe so. But there's only one girl who is perfect for me" I insist.

"I just hate seeing you so happy because she's here but so sad because she's not with you" he admits.

"I don't know what to tell you. I fucked up. I thought she would never leave me. She was such a great girl and she was so in love with me. Man, you should have heard the things she said to me. It's some things that women who had been married for decades wouldn't say to their husband. You should have seen the way she used to look at me, like there could never be anyone better.

I took a great thing... and I broke it. I thought I was untouchable. I thought I could do no wrong. But I couldn't have been more wrong in what I was doing.

I regret my decisions with every single fiber of my being. If I could go back and punch myself in the face I would. I would stop myself from ever hurting her. She didn't deserve what I did to her, what I'm still doing to her. She is the most incredible person in this world, nobody can tell me any different. And she deserves so much better than me. I was lucky enough to have four years with her. And now that she was gone I don't take a single second I had with her for granted. I've seen my life without her in it, and it's so dark.

And that's my own fault, but that's not even the worst part. The worst part is that I know that she could never forgive me. She can't because I can't. I can't look at myself and think about what I did to her without wanting to cry. I want to be with her so bad, but I can't because I broke what we had. We will never have what we had again and that just breaks my heart. The best times of my life, she was right there with me. She's the only reason they're there. Every sweet dream I have, she's in my arms. Every bright future I have it's because she's there standing next to me. I am absolutely positively still in love with this girl and to her I'm a stranger. And it's my fault and it's tearing me up inside" I vent.

I stand there in the middle of Brent's living room as I try to catch my breath after my rant. My breathing gets longer as I start to calm down. I notice that Brent was not looking at me but looking past me. I turn around and see Alyssa standing there staring at me. She had tears in her eyes as she looked straight at me. I feel my chest tighten as my body goes heavy.

"Alyssa" I whisper as she starts to sniffle. She turns on her heel before heading to the door. I quickly go over and grab her wrist so she couldn't leave. "I'm not letting you leave this time" I insist.

"It's too late Duncan" she claims.

"It's never to late" I argue. "I will wait for you forever. I will never give up on you. I know you want to move on, I do too. But the only way I will ever move towards where I'm supposed to be is if you're there with me. And I know you're scared to admit we're supposed to be together. I know you're scared to say that you're mine again. You don't want to get hurt and I really don't want to hurt you. But this is an incredible love we're talking about, there's going to be pain in it. And not the type of pain I caused you, but the pain that you feel when you roll over in bed and it's not me. The pain you feel when you want to go bowling for date night but he thinks it's childish. The pain you feel when you tell him that you love him but you don't really mean it.

I'm not here to make you upset. My goal in life is not to confuse or frustrate you. But I am a hundred percent convinced I am out here with you once again so I can love you. And I will wait forever to have that if I have to" I insist.

"Why now" she whispers. "Why after all of these years are you realizing these things?"

"It took me losing you to appreciate what all you were to me. Then it took me finding you again to realize how much of an idiot I was. I wish it didn't happen this way, but we ended up together again for a reason" I beg.

"We're not together" she sniffles.

"You can't keep denying these feelings" I insist.

"I'm so confused" she admits.

"Then stop fighting it" I tell her.

"I can't let go of that I've been holding on to. I've fought so hard to rid myself of the demons you gave me. I can't just let you back in" she insists.

"You can. You know you can and that's why you're scared. It's as simple as letting go" I say.

"There's nothing simple about letting go. Anyone can stay, it's so easy to not change. It's what I know, it's what I'm used to. I can easily stay and never give it a second thought.

But then you came back and you messed up everything. You showed me that you've changed and that your son is a incredible little boy. You made my grip on my life slip and I'm scared. And I don't know what to do because I know I still love you but I don't think that's enough" she claims.

"Since when is true love not enough" I ask.

"That's not what I mean" she argues.

"Then what do you mean" I yell and she stumbles backwards. "Tell me what you want from me and I'll do it. I will quit hockey, we can take Tristan and move far away from here. We can go to Canada or somewhere no one has even heard of. Just us three. We can start over" I beg.

"I don't want that" she claims.

"Then what do you want" I question.

She just shakes her head before she starts to move away. I follow her as she tries to escape.

"Please... Alyssa. I need you. I need you in the worst way. I need you in every way. Please. Don't go" I say. I wipe a tear from her face as she looked up to me. She looked just as broken up as she did the night she left me.

"I love you Dunky" she whispers and I get chills.

"I love you too" I say. "Please tell me what to do" I beg.

"It's not you" she claims. "I need to figure this out" she says.

"There's nothing to figure out. I love you and you love me and there's nothing else to it" I explain.

"You know that's not true" she says and I let out a long sigh.

"I know that" I admit. "But I don't care about all that other stuff. Since when was love not enough" I ask her.

"Love isn't the problem here. It's more than that" she insists.

"What can I do" I ask for the millionth time.

"Let me go" she says. She takes my hand off of her wrist and walks away. "Just let me go."