A/N: This is my first story updated from university, woo!
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I slammed the closet door shut behind me and leaned my back against it, biting down the sleeve of my sweater to muffle the sound of my sobbing. Slowly I sank to the floor and hugged my knees to my chest, the intensity of my crying caused my whole body to shake uncontrollably while I tried to process what had just happened.
Was that really him? It couldn't be, right?
But it was him. I recognized the scar.
I didn't know how to feel about the encounter. I knew I was angry at him, I knew I was upset and hurt, I knew I missed him but more than anything I was happy to see him. But with all these feelings rushing and swirling in me, each one trying to overpower the other, I was too overwhelmed that I went here to collect my thoughts but even isolation didn't seem to be the answer. In fact, it got worse because the quietness in the closet made my thoughts louder, giving them more volume and power to drown me.
It could have been a happy story about a reunion, but it wasn't because I saw the look on his face. There was nothing there; which meant he didn't have a clue to who I was. Have I really changed all that much in the last few years? I asked myself, trying to find an excuse to why he wouldn't recognize me. Any excuse would do, as long as I wouldn't have to settle with he had forgotten about me.
You can't forget someone who is dear to your heart, can you? Someone that you care about. Then how could he? Unless he never cared at all, and maybe that was why he left in the first place. Or maybe he did have another reason, a reason which I didn't give him the chance to explain for before I stormed away. It could still be anything at this point, I just had to-
"Are you alright in there?" A voice from the other side of the door interrupted my thoughts, catching me off guard. "I'm sorry, that's a stupid question." He laughed humourlessly to himself. "Was it something I said?"
I blinked a tear away and took some deep breaths to calm myself down, but it was useless because it was him that was outside. Hearing his voice asking those questions only brought back some old memories, ones that I kept at the back of my mind in fear of losing it, in fear of never having to hear it again. But there I was with my chest tight and my heart hammering as the same voice spoke the same words to me after all these years of waiting. The effect he had on me was unreal and I seemed to forget about it until now.
"Hello? I know you're in there. I saw you walked in." He asked again, even guiltier this time, which was something I wasn't sure he deserved to feel.
But I clenched my jaw and swallowed hard to answer him. "I'm alright." I lied through my teeth.
"You're lying. Please, come out. You don't have to tell me anything, but I won't leave you alone in there."
It was things like this that I missed the most about him and I felt myself being washed away by my thoughts again, sinking into those memories of our late night calls and conversations, the way he knew how to speak to me, to get through me and to get me through the things I was dealing with.
So I got up and opened the door for him. He held out his hand for me to take and pulled me into a hug. "This is not too much, is it?" He asked about the intimacy.
"No," I breathed out into his shirt. "This is nice."
He held me for a few moments before letting go of the embrace but keeping his hands on my arm. "Feel any better?" He asked while looking straight into my eyes and I melted into his.
I had memorized every little feature; from his soft brown eyes, his nose, his lips that always seemed to smile, the subtle traces of freckles, to the small dimple on his left cheek and of course, the scar-like birthmark on the side his neck. All of those were from the pictures he had sent, the screenshots of our video chats which I didn't so subtly take throughout the years of us talking. I remembered staying up late and staring at those pictures in my phone, wondering where he had run off to until I had them all committed to my memory.
