Shattered (The Academy)

Chapter 45: Gone.

  Sang's point of view.

And like that, time goes by. 

Owen asks me to move together one afternoon when the doctor says I can get out of the hospital if I want to, when he says the others are under control and I can try a live my life normaly, except that I'm not sure life will ever be normal. And as I leave, Owen does too. At the beginning, I was confused as why he would leave his job, but he told me that he was investing in some properties and he wanted to focus on that. Nursing was never his passion, I see now. No, that's not who he is. He wants to be in control, he enjoys being behind a desk even in his own home. It makes me wonder why he was working at the clinic, and when I ask him, he just smiles. It's just that I don't quite believe him when he says he wanted to try something new.

We made a home now, even when we are so young, and I'm scared  this is shaking. Because even when we don't talk about it, we both can see the gap between us, the wall that one day we promised to take down. It's just that telling half truths became too comfortable through the last year. 

But today is the day.

Silas' Point of view.

We got used to seeing from the distance. We took care of her from far away, watching over her happiness and dreams. We gave her Mr. Blackbourne. We gave her to him, even if it was temporarily.

We decided to stay down.

It wasn't always like that. At the beginning we wanted nothing more than run to her and ask for redemption, but then something changed in us. So we decided to stay outside the lines and wait for her: Wait for her to move on, to recover, to know how she feels. And for us too, to know if these feelings would one day disappear, to prove our own strenght, to see if we'd end up crumbling down. But we didn't. It's strange, but this time apart from her made us stronger. It united us instead of driving us apart. We found each other telling memories of her with us, discussing how it was hard to be apart, but that we were happy Mr. B was with her. And happy we were. At least, in some way.  Jealousy was hard at the beginning, but now it's different. We take care of her together, we watch her from a distance, we heal together. Time apart made us stronger.

We are not the same team we were a year a go. We are not the same people either, and we don't have the same ways we used to have. Time has gone both so fast and so slow... I feel like we weren't able to love her before. Not truly, not the way she needed, not the way we truly wanted to. We're eighteen now, but somehow we've grown up so much. And today we're ready.

This is distance between us is gonna fall down now. 

Owen's point of view.

When I come home, she is waiting for me on the driveyway stairs. I wanted to give her a bigger house, but when she saw this one, she fell in love with the gardens and the big space, all the windows that made the house bright. But now with her sitting there, wrapped in a sweater and hugging herself, there is no light. 

And it is when I know there is something really wrong here. And I know what that is.

"Love?" 

She smiles at me, but that smile doesn't reach her eyes. She looks almost... sad.

"Hi, Owen. How was your day?"

"I..." I can't find the words to talk to her. I know it's time to talk, and when she looks back at me, she knows too. It's time "We need to talk, don't we?"

She nods her head, sliding on the other side so I can sit next to her. Usually, she sits here to do her homework when the days are sunny, and sometimes when it rains, but since she graduated earlier, those times are over. And I have the sensation I will not remember her on these stairs the same way I remember her now. This will be a new memorie I will not enjoy.

"There's something I need to tell you" She says, holding her sweater tighter in place "Do you remember those guys who used to visit me at the clinic?"

I nod and breath slowlyl. The time has come.

"They were... more than friends. I kissed one of them once, and that was all, but inside, they were... I mean I felt it at the same time, Owen. I... Please, don't judge me" She hides her head down, her hands on her scalp.

"Sang, look at me"

But she doesn't. How did I let this eat her up for so much time? What kind of boyfriend am I?

"Sang. Look at me" But she still doesn't "Look at me, honey. Look at me"  With a finger, I lift her chin up and when her eyes find mine, I see the storm. So I take a deep breath "Oh, Love. I know"

Confussion fills her face and for a moment I forget how to breathe.

"You... you know? What?"

" Let me tell you a story"

And then, it's two in the morning and we've stopped. Everything, I mean: shouting, explaining, moving, pretendind it is all alright. We stop.

She sits at the other side of the table, drinking coffee while I drink directly from the bottle of whiskey. Grapes that were on the table before I arrived are now all scattered all around the floor, some crashed against the wall; the pillows are thrown on the floor, the blanket that usually lies on the couch is wrinckled. 

"I still love you" she whispers. It's like a blow of the wind: it's there, but it's too fast and too soft. But these words mean something. They always have, they always will.

"I love you too, Love. Always. Please" I'm begging for forgiveness, for unserstandment, for everything and anthing there is to beg.

"Even though you played me" I close my eyes, feeling the sting in my heart "You used me. You made me believe!"

"Sang... I am aware. Love..."

"I'm tired, Owen"

I know she is. I am too. What is left to do or say?

"Will we get past this?" I whisper to the air, my eyes at the ceiling because I've become such a coward I'm amashed of myself.

And then she says it.

"I don't know. We hurt each other. We lied each other"

She sips the rest of her coffee from her pink glittery mug and I leave the bottle alone when I feel dizzy enough to feel lightweighted. To let myself slip away, even if it is just for an instant. But that instant becomes waking up one morning in the couch with a headache, a heartache. It becomes looking at the house that saw us crumble down, it becomes walking through hallways to look for the girl who isn't a girl anymore, not really, not since so long a go.

It means finding out she's gone.

And like that, time goes by. Again.