Everything inside screamed at me, begging me to wake up from the nightmare I had fallen so unexpectedly into. I slowly sat up in bed, taking a moment for my eyes to sweep across the surrounding room, another room that wasn’t my own. My legs moved slowly toward the edge of the bed, sore from overdoing it yesterday, pushing myself too hard again. It’d been that way since she left me, or I left her. I can’t remember anymore. I look around the room for my clothes. Even the thought of dressing seemed like too much. I picked up my phone, swiping across it to unlock it, and opened up my photos, all too aware it would only cause me further pain, but still unable to stop myself. This was how I started every morning. Every morning since the night I walked out of our house three months ago, right after I found out she had lied to me, after I told her I had wanted to marry her. Some days it seemed like only yesterday; other days it felt like a lifetime. I scrolled through the photos in the album labeled Honey, and found the one I had been looking for, the one that called to me, beckoning me to her, the one that had been so ingrained in my memory I didn’t even need to see it physically, but still I looked at it. Stared at it. Touched it. Absorbed it. Loved it.

It was a photo of us, taken on our last night together on the beach, back when she first visited. She was on my back, and we were laughing, her chin tucked closely into my neck, love in her eyes. She was beautiful. We were in love then and didn’t even fully realize how to pursue a long distance relationship, or if it would even work, but we had somehow made it happen. The ache in my chest returned. I ground the heel of my hand deep against it, trying like hell to rub it away, but it was no use. It wasn’t the kind of pain that could be physically touched or wiped away. This pain stemmed from a loss that had cut so deep I wasn’t even sure it could be removed, or if I even wanted it gone. This pain may have hurt, but it was the only physical reminder I had of her, the only tangible thing I had left to prove that our love had even existed.

After telling her I needed some time, we kept in touch, sometimes talking or just texting. I knew that continuing to communicate only prolonged the heartache, but I was convinced she would change her mind, that somehow she would see that time apart only proved we belonged together, and that she would come home. But the longer she stayed away, the more she seemed to only despise me more for asking her to choose. She may have kept something from me, but I deserted her. She had told me last month that she needed to move on, that the pain was too much to endure. So I let her go, or at least that’s what I told her, though that’s not what happened. I never moved on. I still loved her, possibly even more now that I knew she didn’t want me, which was why I kept up this painful ritual. I was afraid that if I stopped, I would forget her, a thought that haunted me daily. My heart ached with a deep and unyielding need to see her, to touch her, to kiss her. I went to bed each night wondering if she thought about me the way I did her. Did she wonder what I was doing? Did she even care anymore? Did she know that every day I spent without her was killing me inside, destroying the man that she had once claimed to love?

From the moment I met her I had been drawn to her, like a powerful magnet, unable to pull away, not that I’d wanted to. She consumed me. My thoughts. My dreams. My hopes. My music. My entire world belonged to her. And without her next to me, it felt pointless to keep going. I threw my phone, letting it hit the wall and leaving a dent before it fell to the floor. My gaze shifted over to the table in the corner of the room, more specifically, to the bottle that sat in the middle of it, unopened and beckoning me over. An empty glass sat beside it, waiting. I had placed them both there last night, intending to give myself over to the emptiness. Without Brooke, I had nothing left to live for.

I cracked open the bottle. The smell permeated my nostrils immediately, reminding me how long it had been since my last drink. I poured off a shot and held it out in front of me, swirling it around and watching as the light reflected off the amber liquid within the heavy tumbler. I held the glass to my lips, staring into the bottom for a few moments, trying to remember the taste of its contents and the burn that followed. I closed my eyes, prepared myself to throw back my head, and saw her face, saw the way her blue eyes sparkled when she smiled, saw the way the color flushed her cheeks when she got embarrassed, saw the way her lips parted right before she kissed me. I squeezed them tighter, trying to shut out the happiest memories of my life before I gave in and made it disappear, if only for tonight. If I couldn’t have her in my life, then I didn’t want to keep living.

RING! RING! RING! The sound of the phone startled me, causing me to drop the glass, its contents gushing out over the table before me. I ignored it, not ready to allow anyone else into my world of misery. For a moment it stopped, silence returning to the space around me, and I was faced with a decision. Did I pour another glass? Just then, the phone rang again, and I slowly rose out of the chair and made my way over to where it lay on the floor. I picked it up and turned it over, half expecting it to be Travis or Dek reminding me of our rehearsal time, but it was neither of them. In fact, it was the last person I would have expected, but the only one I wanted to talk to right now. The only voice I ever longed to hear. I swiped a finger across the screen and held the phone to my ear, unaware I had stopped breathing.

“Sebastian…”

Read the conclusion to Sebastian and Brooke’s love story in MILES APART. Available Now.