Take You Back

CHAPTER 31

~Losing your life is not
the worst thing that can happen.
The worst thing is to
lose your reason for living.
-Jo Nesbo

My very breath felt like my last. Every breath made me ache for it to be the last. I wanted to die. It should've been me. Why her? Why her and not me? My cries for help went unnoticed, contained by the walls of my body. I locked myself away from the world to somewhat believe that it wasn't true. Nothing has changed ever since that day.

My screams echoed inside my head, filling the silence with burning flames of self-loathing. These screams were so silent that only Laura could hear them. Her dead self, at least when she was alive and well, I never let her see the other side of me, which only a few people could see.

I did this to myself. I was to blame. I was the one who danced with the devil bidding on my heart. How could I be so reckless?

It was all my fault. What was I thinking, playing with fire? Didn't I know I was going to burn? Didn't I know that gasoline runs in my veins? All I needed was a flame, a touch of fire and I'd light up.

Could it be that he was the cause of his love's death?

I refused to look away, even as my lips trembled and my shoulders heaved with emotion, unwilling to back down. I looked at the graveyard and finally decided to step out. Step by step, my mind became laid. Nothing was the same anymore. My heart, my head, and the house were so shallow that I could hear nothing but my tears dropping. Those three things were always filled with her, something I got used to every day. Even if she had been my annoyance for months, it was better than having to lose her.

I had always liked my peace, but everything was in pieces. Some would call this an accident, but this was likely one. I had to lose a big part of myself. This has been going on for years! For years and nothing changed, it kept repeating itself.

My dark lashes brimmed heavy with tears; my hands clenched into shaking fists, in a desperate battle against the grief.

There will always be a part of me at her funeral, listening to the hymn, "The Lord is my Shepard." A lone tear traced down my cheek while the words engraved on the stone read In Loving Memory of Laura Johnson, loving wife and friend, and just like that, the floodgates opened.

I wept, tears streaming from my deep blue eyes, the eyes that she'd normally get lost in, loud, heaving sobs tearing from my throat, and still I kept my eyes trained on the tombstone. Not until the sobs drove me to my knees, did my determined gaze fall.

My eyes were burning and my chest felt heavy as if it were filled with lead. I could no longer see clearly. All I knew was that she was gone, out of my life forever. But how could she leave me like this? It was unlikely her to do this. She loves me. She can't go to another place. I won't allow it.

She was gone. Forever. A drop of water fell onto my hand. I looked at the sky and even though the sky had been gray and looked like it was about to break into a heavy downpour, not a drop came from the sky. Looking down at my hand again, another drop appeared, and I realized that the liquid was coming from my eyes.

'Maybe you should say goodbye, Vincent.' A voice in my head said I had to say goodbye to the only person that I felt cared about, the only person that I felt happy with. How was I supposed to just do it without feeling like I'd lost a part of me?

"No I can't. It'll hurt her. It might make her die." I didn't want her to die, so I couldn't. I know she's alive and she will never leave me no matter how much pain I've caused her. I stood there for a moment under the gloomy clouds. Then the water began to sprinkle, cold and wet on my skin. Drops of water trickled down my body as I stood there frozen, my gaze fixed on the tombstone.