Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 111165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 556(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 556(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
It still hasn’t gone away, that pain. There’s still a place inside me that’s carved out and hollow, the space she filled when she was alive. That companion of mine, the pain of loss, lives there, dependable as always. Some days I pay attention to it, some days I don’t but it’s always there. I guess that’s what people mean when they say the ones you love and lose are always with you because they are. If not their spirit and soul, then it’s the constant reminder that you aren’t quite whole.
But while I learned to live with that, learned to adapt and cope and somehow come out the other side as a functioning human being, I’m not sure how to deal with the blow Laz has dealt me.
I’ve lost my best friend.
And the more that time goes by, the more my heart hurts.
The more it weeps for him.
The more I feel like this is something I will never get used to, never learn to live with, never look at as a companion.
I am angry.
I am so fucking angry.
I am hurt. I am in pain. I am made of emptiness and sharp objects.
I have been swallowed up by an endless void.
What makes this loss so different is that Laz isn’t dead.
He’s still out there. He’s still alive. He’s a life force that’s moving along with the time and the longer time stretches, the further apart we become.
Most of all, I’m angry at myself. Because I knew this about Laz. I knew that he was like this, I had seen it with my own eyes over the years. I knew he ran when things got too deep and things got way too fucking deep, way too fast.
I forgot that just because I was feeling something, it didn’t mean he was. I assumed—never fucking assume—that when you loved someone like a friend, and then you threw in sexual attraction, that it equaled romantic love. I thought it would be as easy for him to fall in love as it was for me, because all the basics were already there.
Friendship plus sex equals love.
But my equation was all wrong.
It only added up for me.
And I made the biggest mistake by thinking it added up for him.
So in a way, I pushed him away.
I scared the ever-living shit out of him.
I blindly, boldly, told him I loved him because I thought that’s what he wanted, needed to hear.
It wasn’t.
He ran.
I made something fun and easy become something else.
It’s just…
I love him.
I love him so fucking much that at times it felt like my heart was big enough for the whole world to live in. I thought that love could save me, save him. I thought that love was the biggest most badass force in this universe, capable of doing the impossible.
I believed in love.
I believed in the impossible.
And most of all, I believed in him.
So I’m angry at myself because I messed everything up. I came on too strong. I should have kept my feelings to myself, because really, it was selfish on my behalf anyway. I told him I loved him because it made me feel better.
And now…I’ve never felt worse.
The pain has had me locked in my bedroom for days, sleeping and crying and screaming. I’ve been through a million boxes of tissue, their crumpled, soggy corpses littering the ground. My voice and chest are raw from bawling.
Sometimes Barbara will make the trek across the backyard and come get me or bring me tea.
Most times I’m alone.
It’s been a week since Laz left me with my shredded heart in my hands and I haven’t even told my dad or Margaret. I’m too ashamed. It’s embarrassing to tell someone you were dumped, even if it’s your family.
I did tell Naomi. But only yesterday.
Today, she’s sitting across from me at a café in Santa Monica and staring at me over her cup of coffee. She doesn’t look pleased.
This is why I waited so long to tell her. Because she saw this coming. She was right. And I should have listened to her instead of acting like a lovestruck teenager.
“Again,” I say slowly, taking out a jar of my own honey from my purse and spooning it out into my matcha latte, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”
She watches my honey operation, brows raised, and then says, “I’m your friend, your best friend. Especially now as Laz has been ousted from that spot. I know I say things you don’t want to hear, I know I’ve been miserable lately. But believe me, I want to know when these things happen. I want to be that first person you call. I call you. You’re my person, I should be yours.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re forgiven. Lord knows I was doing crazy shit when Robert…well, anyway. But Laz isn’t Robert.”