The Long Run {c.g.}

How You Lost Him

Just a little more sweetie, it won't be too much longer now. 

It was getting worse, but you already knew that. He was so angry, always finding something to be pissed about. 

It's just a thing, Rick had said, a thing that came with growing up in a world like this. You never truly believed Rick's words, but you really did try, though. You tried to understand the beautiful boy that you got to call yours, but it was near impossible. His anger was unexplained, and it hurt you that he never opened up anymore. 

On the rare nights when you caught him silently crying into his pillow, your heart broke all over again, but you could do little other than scoot closer to him and bury yourself deeper under the blankets. He always let you run your fingers through his hair and whisper sweet words into his ear until he fell asleep. Sometimes he didn't go back to sleep, and the two of you stayed awake till the stars were chased away by the sunlight, just holding each other. 

Those were the nights that you would pray to god, asking that the blue eyed boy would remember how in love you were, how much he needed you as much as you needed him. But, no matter how many hours you wasted away with him when you should have been sleeping, no matter how much you sacrificed for that boy, nothing ever changed. 

Everyday was the same, the evil of the world warping the mind of the boy you loved, twisting him around so that he couldn't see clearly. Anything set him off, and you were scared. 

You were not so scared of what he would do to you, you knew he would never physically hurt you, but you were still scared of what he would do to himself. He was always looking for ways to dig himself deeper, but that was hard for him to do when you were always clawing away at the loose dirt he tried to hide under. 

That angered him. He didn't want help, maybe that's why he pushed. He pushed you away when all you wanted to do was push the pain out of his heart. 

And so you did. 

You pushed and pushed and pushed until one day, something amazing happened. 

You saw him change. You watched him decide to give the world another try, and your heart soared. You two got better, if only a little. Fights became less than a daily routine between you guys, and you saw hope, hope that Carl would fall head over heels for you again, and it worked out that way for a while. 

But then something else happened. 

On the night when your home was overrun by the dead, Carl's view on the world changed forever, in more ways than the obvious. It broke you to see him spiral back down into the abyss in the days and weeks following his injury. He was worse than ever. 

Before he lost half his eyesight, he fought with you on everything, from things that concerned your safety to how much you could eat that day. Then after his injury, he rarely fought with you anymore because he rarely talked with you. Before his injury, he openly voiced his hatred of the world, then after, he kept it all inside, and somehow, you knew that was worse. 

It was always worse, always getting worse, and you knew there was nothing you could do about it. 

No matter how much you willed yourself not to lose the boy with the blue eyes, you could feel him slipping right through your fingers. It was as if he was sand. Coarse, crumbling sand that couldn't clump together to form the person he once was, and you were the sea, constantly coming back to him over and over, but all he could do was drift further up the shore, further away from your touch. 

So tell me, was it worth the trouble? Why did you even try? 

If you could, I bet you would shake your head, smile, and pull out some shitty quote on me, like, Why do you keep breathing when you know you are going to die someday?

You were always into that kind of love, the kind that doesn't exist. I think you knew all along that the kind of love you dreamed about didn't exist. You believed in it though. Despite the ugly truth you always kept hidden in the back of your mind, you truly believed that love would prevail, even till the end. 

And yes, the end. I suppose you remember the end, how could you forget it? How could you forget the way he looked at you, but couldn't see you? How could you forget the last time he held you in his arms or the very last kiss you shared? 

Surely you couldn't forget the tears spent or the hours of begging for him not to go or the making of empty promises that you both knew you couldn't keep. 

The end was bitter and harsh and all too soon for you, but it was too late. He was too far gone and you couldn't bring him back.