The morning after
It was surprisingly easy not waking her up. As she lay there, curled up on his bed with her head comfortably nested between the safety of her arms and her hair curtaining her calm face, slumbering despite the ongoing alarm that rang through the apartment. The snoozed noise reminded him of what he needed to do, and he broke his gaze from her as he turned the alarm off and got out of bed. The girl remained unmoving, drawing deep breaths from the air around her, and he studied her again as he was pulling on some of the few clothes that wasn’t packed down in bags. ‘Why had she come?’ The question came naturally to him as he looked at her turning around in her sleep and reaching for a body that was no longer there. The emptiness of the vacant body didn’t stir her to wake up — instead she withdrew her arm back to her chest and hugged it with her other. It wasn’t like he not wanted her here, quite the opposite but he needed to go, and yet he didn’t want to pull away from the sight of her, didn’t want to turn around and leave her here, so vulnerable and so pure. But he had to, so eventually he did, tearing his gaze away and unwillingly stepping out in the cold December morning.
As the door shut, the girl stirred, her eyes fluttering open, wishing that he would come back, that he at least would kiss her goodbye. That he would acknowledge her presence in any way before he slipped out of her life for such a long time. She sat up and wrapped the covers around her to keep the warmth her body had built up throughout the night. She stared at the door, willing him to remember something he had forgotten, just so he would return and could see that she was awake, that she had been the entire time, and come back to her. But he didn’t. Of course he didn’t. She sighed unhappily, heartbroken and lay down again, rolling her head over to the pillow that bore his scent, the one he had been sleeping on. His presence still lingered there, the pillow still a bit warmer than the rest of them, and a bit of his scent still intact. She breathed in, puling him closer in mind and spirit. Her head swirled, her gaze became blurry and something sank in her chest when realization hit her with so much force that for a while, the girl was certain that her heart stopped beating just for a split of a second. It wasn’t fair of him, just to leave her like this, craving more and falling wildly out of control.