my heart || ✓

don't fade away |

"...this heart, it beats, beats for only you, my heart is yours; please don't go now, please don't fade away."

-

I stare in my bathroom mirror at my unfamiliar image staring back at me. My surroundings and the vessel with which I see my reflection are so different from the one in which I watched my curls fall to the dirty floor that painful night, but the face here looks just as terrible. At times like these, I regret cutting off the hair I had grown so accustomed to. It looked alright enough, yes, but it was its mere presence that held more importance than its look.

The feel of something other than my own skin or flesh dressing my head, acting somewhat as a shield between the world and my vulnerable eyes, was so important to me, so comforting.

Of course, it is one of those things you don't realize you value so strongly until it is gone. And I had valued them strongly, that protection, that curtain, but I cannot regret it after all. Because maybe, by the time they grow back, there will be no drunken silhouette of a girl haunting every corner of my mind and every curl of hair on the bathroom floor.

And maybe, by then, I will be able to forgive myself for my unfaithfulness to a girl who is faithful to a man other than me.

"Hey, Taylor?" A voice rings out through my empty mind. I close my eyes. Deep breaths, my mind tells me. But what is the point, anyway? To live longer with every exaggerated inhale? That is hardly what I want.

I look up once I have indeed lengthened my life span, finding a rather nervous girl looking into my eyes. In hers, I already find pain, concern, worry for something beyond her understanding, though I haven't yet spoken a word. Looking back into mine, well.

There is nothing for her to find.

"What is it, Hayley?" Her eyes linger on mine as I speak, as if she hadn't even known why she'd called me.

"I just. . ." She finally pulls her gaze away, only to stare at the door and her fingers and her feet. Anywhere but me. "I just wanted to ask if you were okay."

I blink. It is lazy and slow, and so it acts as a foil to the movements of her gaze returning to my blank face. And it brings me such shame, such pain, that I can no longer bear to look at the beauty that I had once admired so strongly. I wonder what part of it might reveal her true intentions with me — with my fragile mind that is too far gone to do anything for myself rather than for her. It is all for her.

"Yeah, Hayles." I try to remain as steady as possible, but my voice cannot help but sharpen, biting harshly at the small girl with what few words I offer. I love Hayley. But I have so many things against her, in my head and in my heart, and not a single one is her fault. Not a single one is anyone's fault besides my fucked up mind's.

"Okay," she says, and I almost breathe a sigh of relief. "But. . ."

I want to look at her face. I want to find the emotion she holds for me and remind myself that she truly cares, but all it brings now is pain and false hope. How could she care for me when she so blatantly chose someone else after convincing me with her words and her hands and her lips that I had a chance?

"You know you can talk to me, right?" I stare at her, watching the changes in her face as she speaks — concerned and open. So vulnerable, as if she has any right to be.

Did I know that, Hayley? Is it true? Does it really matter if I did, if it is? Because my words don't seem all too powerful anymore, no matter how I share them. Not with you, not with myself, not with strangers at bars. Not with anyone.

"I know, Hayles." Maybe if I make it easy on her, things will be better. It is impossible for anything with her to be easy for me anymore, but what do I matter? I do it all for her.