//all you had to do was stay//

Prologue

June, 2014

And you tell me, she says, she says it so loudly, you tell me you love me.

He used to build time machines as a kid, he used to throw blankets over down cast chairs and pretend that under them - closing his eyes so tightly it hurt, he could go back to the wild western, a time when bullets flew as casually as seagulls along the shore, his father could describe. Oh, he'd think. He'd think he wanted to be a cowboy, just like John Wayne.

She's crying. He's never seen her cry before. What he has seen is red puffy eyes and stained cheeks, obvious signs but nothing more. He saw it a lot in the beginning of their relationship, he cried a lot himself during that time, but that was it. Never actual tears. He used to make a fuss about it. You don't let me in Taylor.

With good reason, apparently.

Fuck, he needs a time machine. He needs it right now. His chest starts to vibrate, pulse after pulse of pain going up and down his veins. He's having trouble breathing, and she's packing. She's folding clothes, not throwing them hastily into a bag like they do in the movies - but folding, slowly and neatly, t-shirt after t-shirt into a not big but not small leather bag.

He want's to say stop and he wants to apologize, he realizes that he hasn't even said i'm sorry - not one time, when it's all he feels, so goddamn sorry. So goddamn bloody sorry.

But his throt is dry and the knowledge that his life is ending with each motion of her hand, each piece of her small wardrobe disappearing, it's keeping him still. Because soon there will be nothing left to pack and she'll slip into her shoes, she'll kiss him goodbye to salt his wounds, and she'll leave thinking their love meant nothing.

He doesn't get it, standing there with his mouth ajar and his chest slit open, why words fail him now. When talking is all he does, when usually he can't stop talking. He can't shut up.

"I'll die if you leave me." He tries to say. But what comes out is alien sounds, incoherent syllables mixed with gasps. He doesn't give up and at last - finally, using every ounce of power in his body, he manages to push the words out and beyond his trembling tongue. I'll die.

She shakes her head, her beautiful full red lips caught between her teeth.

"Yes, I will." He sobs, fully breaking the barrier that kept him silent, he moves to the door. He leans on it, blocks it, holds his hands behind his back and pushes at it even though it's already shut. "I'm not going to let you go."

He's desperate now, grasping at straws, knowing very well that the tiny woman in front of him is unstoppable. Nobody can stand in her way when she decides on something, nobody.

"Don't be cruel, Harry." She whispers, hauling the bag over her shoulder. She swallows hard and takes a step forward. You will not pass, he thinks. You can't.

"You cheated." She says. "We're broken now."

His memory shoots back to his mothers favorite vase, an antique porcelain vase proudly possessing a dozen roses, it was beautiful. It still is, even though he shattered it with his football, that one day. He was playing indoors even though he shouldn't. But she glued it back together and it's barely noticeable now, that it was scattered all across the wooden floor kitchen once.

They can be like that vase.

She tells him goodbye. She says she's called a cab, and it's most likely waiting.

"No."

"Flippy." She begs, her eyes holding nothing but pain, all traces of hate and anger wiped away. "I'll still love you for the rest of my life."

He looks down at his bare feet. Crying? He's not sure. He's just so fucking cold. Freezing to death in the middle of June. "And I'll spend the rest of my life in regret."

It ends the same way it started, fiction blurring with reality, she tells him to be good to himself, don't beat yourself up over a human mistake, and he waits for someone to yell cut.

He wants to wake up. He wants to laugh over how fucking silly he is. Be safe. Ha!

But nothing comes and he's losing everything because of kisses he can't remember and vodka he'll never drink again. He spends the rest of the day under a chair, fully grown man - what a joke. And he was wrong. She didn't even grant him that one last kiss. She just touched his shoulder, pushed him away weakly, and then floated away.