After You... (1st Draft)

Chapter 18 - All Roads Lead to Him

                         Chapter 18 - All Roads Lead to Him

One hour.

One hour of waiting and yet...

Nothing.

One hour of thinking I'd made the kind of mistake you make on a late night after one too many, as you drunkenly message someone with slurred stuffyou's and I miss you, I hate you but I don't, you arsehole. That kind of thing.

One hour wasting away with the cold of a damp pillow against my cheek.

One hour of rocking back and forth like a recovering addict on lovesick pills.

One hour of listening to nothing but screaming thoughts. Of wanting to cut them out. Malachy included. He was a distant torture.

C'mon, just get the hell up, Bree. Please?

Nope. Not even happening. A body like lead and no will left in me, I lay there heavy, feeling myself fade somewhere between the power my thoughts had over me and the vacant stare-down I was having with the ceiling.

It was hard not to stare at it. The white was colouring itself in one vision after another. Art was being created on that ceiling right before my eyes. My thoughts were all over it just painting by numbers.

At some point in that hour, I heard Jackson laugh. It made a welcome change since they'd had another argument not too long before. Kibbie was video calling him like they were seas apart. But despite what they had and I didn't, I could only feel myself smile. Imagining myself making that call, imagining that it was Malachy's laugh. Because I swear, if I didn't hear that again...

I didn't want to think about it but my mind wasn't merciful enough to let me. All I knew was that I'd feel even more adrift than I did right now. Stupidly drifting but only when I could get any sleep.

It was only in sleep I didn't mind being adrift because anything I'd ever lost I'd always find there. Memories couldn't fade where dreams existed. They'd just play out there too. When Darius left I saw him all the time there even when I didn't want to. I knew then that dreams can haunt just as much as absence could.

But with Malachy, I lost all the things I never gave myself a chance to have. I lost all the words I never allowed myself to say. I didn't take enough of a risk for him and I lost out by holding back the reigns of our possibilities, so I had to find those things again.

And I found the things I lost. I lost his smile but I found it again when I was dreaming. That was the only place I could go where I knew where he was. He was with me. Where if I needed to see him, it was there that I could find him. I couldn't even look into his eyes without thinking he was looking into someone else's, but I could see them behind mine looking into me, whenever I fell asleep. He made me want to sleepwalk through life if that was the only way I'd get to see him again.

I think I wanted to say that to him.

Yeah, stay optimistic. You'll get to.

Someday.

Maybe.

I should have said something. Would have said something. Could have said something. All those shoulda, woulda, coulda's were no match for the wisha, ifa, hadda's.

I remember him telling me he didn't want to regret anything. He didn't want to regret the chances he didn't take in this life or the girl he didn't go for. No matter how many doubts he had or what kind of hurt he'd been through, and all I had to do was settle his doubts, but when it came down to it, I couldn't.