Page 73 of Revive

I school my features, trying to reason with her. “Just Let. Him. Go.”

“What if he doesn’t choose either of us?”

Her question proves to me, she’s as one track minded as I thought, because this isn’t about who he chooses, this is about sacrificing your own needs for the person you love. But there’s no point explaining that to someone like her. Instead, I bite back with the bitchiness she deserves. “I’ll still fucking die happy, knowing it wasn’t you.”

“You’re a bitch,” she huffs.

“Maybe that’s why he likes us both.”

* * *

Placing Dakota’stickets on the table, I take the silent living room as the perfect time for my escape. Leaving Sasha in the room, I choose not to find Drix. With the high from my confrontation with Sasha dwindling, I feel the cracks in my chest return. And I need to get out of here before I bleed out.

Just as I’m about to pull the front door open, I hear a familiar voice. “Taylah,” Em whisper shouts. “Where are you going?”

I twist to see her, my hand still on the handle. “Why are you whispering?”

“I don’t know,” she says, continuing to whisper. “That’s what people do in tense situations.”

I give half a laugh. “Tense, huh?”

“Are you okay?” She grabs my wrist and pulls it off the cool metal.

“I don’t know. I think I’m having an out of body experience and I need to get home before it all hits at once and I unravel in public.”

“Drix is outside.”

I shrug at her statement because I really have no idea what his side is to any of this, and after he left me stranded for most of the day, I’m pretty sure I know where his head’s at right now.

“Let me drive you,” she insists.

“I just want to be alone, Em.” I lean forward and give her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Will you answer my calls?”

“Probably not.” She rolls her eyes, and I open the front door. “Oh,” I say looking back. “You might want to check on Sasha in the room. Don’t let her miss the rest of Dakota’s party.”

She salutes me, and I wave bye.

I need to get out of here.

* * *

I walk into my room,and my sad face stares back at me. The reminder that I will get through this screaming at me, like I drew her for this very moment. Tugging at my clothes, I pull them off and kick them to the side of the room.

I find one of Drix’s t-shirts, smelling exactly like him, and wear it. I bunch up the material and bring it to my nose, the smell of wood and soap comforts and kills me all in one breath. I grab my phone, and let Phil Collins’ voice lull me into a false sense of hope, while I crawl into bed and nurse my wounds.

Putting angry thoughts of Sasha out of my mind, I let myself cry, acknowledging just how much I’m going to miss him. I think of any single moment that could’ve changed this outcome between us, or something I could’ve done to have avoided this feeling. But there’s nothing.

I should’ve known it was always going to end up like this. His heart was divided, and I chose to ignore it. Drunk on love, I believed something so new, and short, could outlast whatever connection he has to his past.

As the tears continue, I cry for the unknown, I cry for what we had, I cry even more for how much heartache he’s endured, and I cry over the end of the best thing to ever happen to me.

Eventually he and I will have to say goodbye properly, and I’ll tell him, it wasn’t the little things that hurt the most, it was the loss of the all the big things he and I can’t have.

The house. The kids. The future.

If he was in front of me right now, I would give him one last kiss goodbye and say thank you for the memories. I will remember him with a smile, and gratitude because there’s nothing negative to take away, except we weren’t meant to be.

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