The Second Chapter

Candlelight- June 7, 2019

This time last year, I was giddy with excitement. A week full of competitive campfire cooking, poorly hidden flirting and stolen glances had prepared me for the most magical night of my life. Fireflies lit up the inky black night, nine solemn flames flickered in the wind and I watched as bats danced in ballet above my head. You stood to my right, the most identifiable part of you in the dark being those atrocious pink slides. But you stood there as I was overcome with awe and appreciation for this new beautiful and magical place, as my breathe caught in realization that I was to have the best summer of my life in the weeks to come.

That night, under the starry sky, you took my face in your hands and kissed me for the first time.

I could cry remembering it, would do anything to relive it. It was so magical, so perfect even a romance novel couldn't have captured its essence. And after long moments holding one another and soaking in our new found love, you walked me home, the hand that would soon become the home for my own guiding me through the dark.

Now, I sit alone in a bathroom, sick to my stomach contemplating whether I should go at all. I know going means two things:

1) Reliving last year only to know that things tonight will certainly not end the same way and

2) Following the extinguishing of candles, people will hug. And I will watch painstakingly from afar as you embrace everyone BUT me.

The only positive I can see is lighting a candle. Crying in solitude with my soul. But is that enough? Will it carry me through the pain of what this night means? It signified the start of our love story last year...now it signifies the end. A year long chapter come to close. As always, my brain is rife with imagined scenarios- you hug me anyways and whisper that we need to talk, you seek me out and pull me away for a private embrace, anything but what I know will happen, which is this: you will hug everyone, avoiding me. And I'll stand lonely, watching everyone soak up your love while I remain empty and untouched.

I know you think you understand how much this is killing me, but you don't. It's tearing me to shreds; it's as if you're taking a dull butcher's knife to my insides and detaching each cord that suspends them in my body, eyes alit with glee. It feels like a white hot branding iron shoved down my throat and held in place by an equally scalding iron chain, wrapped around my neck, suffocating me slowly. I feel pain inside and out. I wish to throw it up, expel it from my body, sob until it's drained, sleep until it fades. But I wipe my mouth, dry my eyes and wake up every day to the agony still in place.

You've left you're mark on me B, there's no denying that. And I feel it with every step I take. Living another day without you seems more and more formidable as time passes. I only wish you felt the same.

~

I went. And you saw my body shake, wracked with tears. And instead of pulling me in and wiping them away like you promised you always would, you turned you back and walked away. For a second time.