Mirror, Mirror | ✓

•Day 45• Will

❝I plant roots so deeply in the people I love that I always lose a piece of myself when they go.❞
• • •

People always said that heartbreak healed over time. As the days passed, it would get easier. You wouldn't feel the nagging pain in your heart and all your thoughts wouldn't be diverted to the scars of your past relationship.
You'd get better, they said.
They lied.

It only got harder. At first, I was too numb to feel anything. I felt like I was merely in a nightmare and soon I would wake up, and everything would be alright again. I'd have Holly back in my arms. But as time wore on, reality finally caught up with me. It'd only been two days, but it felt like an eternity.

I was used to being without Holly for several days at a time, owing to the disorder. The only thing that kept me sane was the knowledge that she'd be back one day. But this felt so much worse. It was the pain of knowing that she'd never, ever come back to me. She was gone forever.

Two days in, I knew I couldn't handle it. I was being driven insane by my own mind. I knew there had to be more as to why Holly had broken up with me. It seemed like her to want to protect my feelings, but a part of me feared that she'd found out about Thea. In that case, she was truly gone forever.

The whole of that day, I'd chosen to stay away from her, knowing that it was better for the both of us. I had to be strong for her. I couldn't let her take me back. She deserved better. I'd hurt her in a way that could never be healed. She would find someone who'd treat her right.
But all that changed when I heard the news.

Some people are bound to each other by their secrets, trust, memories and the years they've spent together. Even if there's a break in their relationship, they will always hold a piece of each other's hearts. They'll find their way back to each other sometime or the other, irrespective of whether it's the right thing for them or not. The people who hold your heart can never leave. I had two-fifth of Holly's, and she had the whole of mine. I found my way back to her in the end.

When I found out about Granddad, I knew she needed me. So in that moment, we forgot about everything that had happened in the past and didn't overthink the future. We were trapped in that moment, in each other's arms, sobbing our empty hearts out.
We chose to wake up from the nightmare.

"You came," Holly said, her voice hoarse from crying. I tightened my grip on her, afraid she'd fall from the effort of speaking. She looked so frail in that moment, I feared she'd collapse from the grief. At the sight of her, I felt a pang in my chest. I wished that I could erase the pain from her eyes and the worry from her forehead, but I also knew that I too had contributed to her sadness, and I hated myself for it.

"Of course," I said softly, cupping her cheek. She shivered from my touch, and I swiftly moved my hand away before I could hurt her any further, when she took my hand and placed it back, a firm expression on her face.

They were only two words, but I could see the sudden shift in her demeanor. It was like she'd become calmer. As if she was finally at peace with herself.

"You came through the window," she said softly, a light smile playing on her lips.
"Wait, what?" I said aloud. Startled was an understatement to describe what I was feeling.

"The window," she said again, then giggled. She bent her head and began to play with a necklace I'd only then noticed she was wearing. It was a small white flower with a yellow centre. A daisy, I realized with a jolt.

A deep sadness clouded her vision when she toyed with it. I could almost see her reliving every moment, every memory, every single word he ever told her. I didn't know how it felt to lose someone, but I knew I had to be prepared for it. Soon, I was going to lose the love of my life, possibly for ever.

And forever, it was.

"Daisy?" I asked, growing worried.
"Yes?" She asked innocently, still rubbing her pendant, lost in thought.
I backed away from her slowly and steadily, unknowing how to address the situation. Ava had told me about Holly's recent switches, but I hadn't witnessed one since Daisy's change into Elody, and that didn't even count because it was Brynn all along. I thought for sure that even the ones Ava was talking about were Brynn's master plans, but I could finally see that I'd been wrong. This was Daisy. There was no doubt in that. And that made everything so much worse.

The window must have been a trigger, as I only entered that way when she was Daisy. Ava once told me that anything that was related to one alter only could act as a trigger for switching.

"Granddad...." I started, hating myself even more for being the bearer of bad news. Her eyes glistened at the mention of his name. Did she know?

"He passed away, Daisy," I said, my eyes misting over. I loved Granddad. I spent so much time at Holly's that sometimes I forgot he wasn't my own grandfather. He was always going on about how perfect Holly and I were together and that we reminded him of how it felt to be young and in love.

He was always telling me stories about coincidences and connections and how soulmates never leave each other. For a man who'd fallen in love again after the death of his so-called soulmate, he sure was hell-bent on his theory.

As much as I wanted to believe that Holly was the only love of my life, I knew it wasn't true.

I loved Daisy, Elody, Alora and Brynn too.

"Not in my heart," she whispered back, clutching onto the pendant.
She knew.

Her memories were combining. The wall separating the minds of the alters was receding, brick by brick. Slowly, gradually, Holly's alters were vanishing right before my eyes. She was coalescing.

The worst part was that I didn't know whether she was winning or losing that battle against herself.

• • •
A/N What do you think? Will Holly win or lose?