There was something so heavy about the burden of history, of the past. I wasn't sure I had it in me to keep looking back.
That girl was different from who I was now, more whole and unbroken and okay than the one I saw in the mirror these days. I'd just thought I was the only one who noticed.
Once, the difference between light and dark had been basic. One was good, one bad. Suddenly, though, things weren't so clear. The dark was still a mystery, something hidden, something to be scared of, but I'd come to fear the light, too. It was where everything was revealed, or seemed to be revealed.
I had no illusions about love anymore. It came, it went, it left casualties or it didn't. People weren't meant to be together forever, regardless of what the songs say.
And the sick thing? In a way, I was almost happy to see her: the worst part of me, out in the flesh. Blinking back at me in the dim light, daring me to call her a name other than my own.
I didn't trot my pain out to show around. I kept it better hidden than anyone.
Because I didn't show weakness: I didn't depend on anyone. And if he'd been like the others, and just let me go, I would have been fine. It would have been easy to go on conveniently forgetting as I kept my heart clenched tight, away from where anyone could get to it.
But instead I found myself gritting my teeth, riding the wave of my natural anxiety, because this wasn't permanent, me and him, and to think so would only hurt both of us.
The past was so sticky, full of land mines: I made it a point, usually, not to be so detailed in the map of myself I handed over to a guy.
The only way to truly reach me was to sneak up, crash in, bust past the barricades on the equivalent of a kamikaze mission, end result unknown.
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