Kill This Love [MeanPlan - COMPLETE]

With Every Broken Bone, I Swear I Lived

The charging of Plan's phone brought him back down to reality with a thud.

He'd let it stay dead for eleven days of which, for the most part, he'd spent feeling a sense of achievement for succeeding in the most basic of tasks.

On the third day, he'd finally managed to eat a full meal, his mother's home cooking revitalising his taste buds with every mouthful. By day four, he was making the effort to change out of his pyjamas and into proper clothes. The afternoon of day six, he'd nipped to the shops to pick up some eggs and a few essentials, guided by the list his Ma had written for him. Unexpectedly on day nine, he'd got a full night's sleep, long glorious hours undisturbed by nightmarish dreams.

Despite these small victories, his progress was regularly interrupted by spontaneous outbursts of ugly tears that he had no control over. They didn't creep up on him or build throughout the day, nor were they triggered by any specific happenings that he could pin them down to. They just came, unpremeditated and without warning. The first time he had been brushing his teeth, looking at his reflection in the bathroom mirror when he suddenly remembered, the wave of sadness hitting full force and mixing with the running water.

The worst instance had been at a supermarket on the fifth day. Busy picking out vegetables to chop up for dinner, an arm had reached across him for some broccoli. Plan's eyes had turned to follow the man it was attached to, the cologne he was wearing similar to Mean's and stopping his heart. The stranger had the same silhouette, tall and slim with a mop of dark hair.

Plan had thrown the buttersquash he was holding into the carrot basket, pushing past him on the way out and racing back to the privacy of his car. He'd sat sobbing hysterically in the parking lot for half an hour before the episode subsided, waiting for the man to leave. Once he eventually appeared, arm in arm with a woman Plan presumed was his girlfriend, he looked entirely different from the front. Not wanting to head home empty handed and have to explain why, he'd gone back in to buy the ingredients, red rimmed eyes avoiding the cashier's gaze when she noticed his blotchy cheeks.

Real life ceased to exist in those days as he focused on simply surviving them, yet he still sensed its looming presence there and the dread it inspired within him. How was he supposed to open his socials and face what Mean had been up to, no doubt coping just fine and still going about his daily life whilst his own had fallen apart. Plan didn't want to know who he had been seeing or interacting with, his imagination having done a good enough job at torturing him on that front already. He was not yet prepared to witness the fight for Mean's affections now that he was no longer a contender.

Under the cover of the eighth night, Plan had placed a pillow behind him along his spine.

Shuffling back into it, he'd imagined that the arms he hugged around himself were his ex-boyfriend's. He'd closed his eyes, conjuring with all of his might the sensation of how it felt to be spooned by him, tilting his head back against the duck feathers as though they were Mean's shoulder until he felt comforted. Until it felt real. Plan had whispered words into the darkness as though he wasn't alone, telling him all of the things he'd never been able to before.

I would give anything to fall asleep with you again.

You're the only one that I want.

I don't think I ever truly knew happiness until I'd been touched by you.

Did you ever really love me?

Eventually he'd rolled over, clutching the pillow tight to his chest and drenching it in grief when no answer came.

He'd still been holding it when he woke the next morning.