The Art of Starting Over

Bonus (CUT) #5 - The Day She Left Me

I open the door and the void she left behind her hits me squarely in the heart. Her scent is everywhere but her stuff is gone. No hairbands on the coffee table. No Bad Cop mug in the sink. No cardigans carelessly thrown over the back of the sofa. Her keys are on the dining table next to her orchid, which she placed in the exact spot where my mother's ugly vase used to be. My heart skips a beat as I realise she left a note.

Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure. E. Bennet.

The irony of it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. She's Elizabeth. But I'm not Darcy. I didn't get the girl.

She left the door to her room open. I walk in to find it completely empty, just like it was when I gave it to her. Only before, the bareness of it gave me a sense of tranquillity and freedom. Now, it's just... so fucking empty.

There are no books scattered all over the furniture. No bits of clothing all over the place. No shoes stacked along the perimeter of the room. There's nothing. Just her scent all over the bedsheets on which I lay with her for one glorious day. One fucking day.

I try to wipe the memory of her lips from my head, the feeling of her skin against my fingertips. But it's like trying to wipe off a tattoo with a dry tissue. I breathe out and look up at the ceiling.

"Now what do I do?" I ask, wondering if Millie can hear me.

The doorbell rings and my heart catapults through my chest. I practically run to it and wrench it open, expecting to see her there, suitcase in hand, her expressive hazel eyes round and full of emotion. Maybe she forgot something. Maybe she changed her mind. Maybe she realised that she can't be without me, just like I'm realising that I have no clue how the fuck I'm ever going to get used to being without her.

I need her like air, like fucking oxygen. Even if things weren't as good as I'd hoped between us, at least I could see her. I could keep an eye on her, make sure she's okay. I could hear her rushing around when she was late for work and cite her quotes when she was studying.

But my heart plummets when I see that it's not her at the door. She didn't come back. She didn't change her mind. My eyes start to sting. It feels like my head's been forced underwater as I watch Stephanie's lips move and her hands put forward a manila folder.

I shut my eyes against the reality that she's gone, really, truly gone, cursing myself for being so stupid and thinking I ever had a chance with her.

"Mr Cordina?" Stephanie says. But I only shut my eyes tighter knowing that when I open them, she still won't be here. "Mr Cordina!"

"What do you want, Stephanie?" I sigh, running my hands over my face, knowing I'm being rude but not having enough life in me to care.

"I brought you the remaining paperwork for the store," she answers sounding hurt. "Everything is signed. There weren't any problems. And there's a copy of the restraining order against Derek just like you asked."

"Should I ask you to get another one against Keith?"

My words shock her. So, she knows what she did was wrong. She knows the asshole used to hurt Ally and yet she's still with him.

"Keith never laid a hand on me," she says defensively.

Why do they all defend him? Ally defended him too. She said he made her happy. My fists clench as I remember the bruises on her body. And yet, he wasn't the one who drove her to buy a one-way ticket out of this shithole.

"He will," I assured Steph. "People don't change that easily."

I take the file from her hands and throw it carelessly on the side table without bothering to open it.

"Thank you. I know you could have gotten a lot more for it if... Mr Cordina, are you okay?"

I can't answer her. I can't even think of a word that describes how not okay I am. Devastated. Lost. Wrecked. An intense combination of the three.

I walk over to the sofa and plop myself on it leaving the door open, not caring whether she comes in or not. She does. She looks at me apprehensively for a full minute before she speaks again.

"Mr Cordina, can I ask you something?" she asks timidly.

I keep my eyes fixed on one spot on the carpet, struggling to think about anything except how quiet the house is. Not that she was noisy. She moved like a mouse. But the absence of her eager turning of pages, her humming when she was in a particularly good mood and the occasional curse whenever she dropped something feels like a cavity in my soul.

"Is she still very angry at me?" Steph goes on. "I really miss her. I know I shouldn't expect anything after what I did but I was wondering maybe you could talk to her for me, convince her to just hear me out? If anyone can do it, it's you. I never saw Ally react to anyone the way she reacts to you."

The sound of her name almost breaks me. I want to lash out at Stephanie. I want to be angry at her for doing what she did, because if she were still her friend, maybe, just maybe Ally wouldn't have left. She'd probably still be with Keith but at least I could see her sometimes. Maybe talk to her occasionally under some pretence or other. I would have some form of hope that I might hold her tiny body in my arms again.

Hell, I'd take anything when it comes to Ally.

She always seemed so small and I always felt the inexplicable need to shield her, protect her, even though I knew perfectly well she didn't need me to. She could take on a whole army of arrogant pricks like me.

"Please, Jeremy!" Stephanie pleads when I don't speak.

As she calls me by my first name, all my anger at her fades away and instead, a fresh yet familiar sense of self-loathing boils in my stomach. She didn't leave because of Stephanie. She didn't leave because of her father. She left because of me.

She left because I had failed her so many times that I could never earn her trust. She left because she couldn't believe I wouldn't hurt her again, after being so hot and cold with her. If only she knew that I never left her. Not for one second. And I never will. I went to every length to push her away with the intention of protecting her from myself and it finally worked. I sincerely hope she's all the better for it because I certainly am not. I guess I forgot to protect myself in the process.

I played with fire and got burned. I jumped from an aeroplane flying at forty thousand feet and when the time came to open the parachute, I didn't. I closed my eyes and let myself bask in the adrenaline that was her. And now I've hit the ground and dug a hole so deep that I don't even know if I want to climb out of it.

"I can't," I answer her at last.

I feel Stephanie fidget beside me and I close my eyes, knowing she won't just give up and go.

"Look, I know what I did was awful! I'm a horrible friend and I'm not asking for anything. I just want her to know-"

"I can't!" I say again, louder this time as I run a trembling hand through my hair and turning to face her. "She left."

Stephanie looks at me stunned and confused. "What do you mean she left?"

"She's off to London with her father."

Saying it out loud is not making it any easier.

"Her father? I thought she couldn't find him."

"She couldn't," I scoff ironically. "I found him for her. He came here. And now, he's taking her home with him."

I rub the sides of my face again, trying to decrease the numbness.

Home. Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

"When?"

I stare at my watch, my heart wrenching in my chest with every tick of the second hand. "Her flight leaves in less than thirty minutes."

"What?"

Stephanie looks at me incredulously for three painful heartbeats. Then, in a flurry of black curls, she turns around and sprints out of the apartment, leaving the door open behind her.