i miss you.
i miss the way you smile: that goofy, cheeky grin you’d throw my direction — it made my heart skip a beat.  i miss the way you smell.  you always smelled like home.  comfort.  tranquility.  i miss our talks.  i miss laying in your bed, smiling from ear to ear, unable to keep my heart from beating aloud.  i miss kissing you.  i miss you holding me.  i miss you watching out for me, taking care of me when i’m drunk, kissing my forehead when i’m lost.
i even miss the bad.  i miss the fights.  i miss the crying.  i miss screaming at you, wanting you so badly it hurt.

i miss you. 

i miss you.
i miss the way you smile: that goofy, cheeky grin you’d throw my direction — it made my heart skip a beat.  i miss the way you smell.  you always smelled like home.  comfort.  tranquility.  i miss our talks.  i miss laying in your bed, smiling from ear to ear, unable to keep my heart from beating aloud.  i miss kissing you.  i miss you holding me.  i miss you watching out for me, taking care of me when i’m drunk, kissing my forehead when i’m lost.
i even miss the bad.  i miss the fights.  i miss the crying.  i miss screaming at you, wanting you so badly it hurt.

i miss you. 

how odd is it to realize he was anything before she met him.  he was a person, who rose and fell asleep each day, absent of her presence.  he lived without her for years.  she, too, was someone before him.  she had lived years without him, never realizing what she was missing.
but now, there was no way she could live without him.  he was no longer an invisible entity, the prince she dreamed about.  he was here, laying next to her, breathing real air and dreaming real thoughts.
the manner in which lives intertwine would forever amaze her; but laying in his queen bed, she couldn’t focus on anything else than his hand lazily resting on her stomach.  a stomach that was filled to the brim with butterflies, all a creation of his own.

She refused to let him any closer.  An inch more may set her skin on fire, burning all her secrets to ash.  No one could decipher ash: beyond recognition.  Yes, surely self-destruction was the best means of escape.  He stood there, staring, waiting, as if she was going to spill her secrets the moment he offered to hear them.  He has no clue what he’s asking for.  Yes, she definitely felt a sense of pity for his futile attempts to crack her shell.  But pity was a simple emotion; no, her brand of pity was laced with smugness.  You think you can win?  You think you can fix me?  She internally challenged him.  She had learned long ago to never put all of her eggs into one basket.  She had also learned that people wanted to mend each other.  He, like so many before him, wanted the bragging rights: yes, she opened up to me.  We just have a connection.  We are that in love.  Well, his perception of love was nothing but shit.
He had been staring at her the whole time, confused by the way her eyes had alternated between flashing with fury and swelling with tears.  He moved forward, yearning to comfort her, and she felt herself automatically take a step back.
The dividing line was as clear as day. 

She deemed herself a lost cause.
From that first cut, the first purge, that first depression-driven high, she deemed herself a failure.  She was also convinced that she was incurable, sickened by a soon-to-be discovered mental disease, immune to love from others.  She often wondered why she was so ruined: she came from a love-filled household, never going without.  There had been many before her that came from much worse; so what had affected her to the point of no return?  Perhaps the better question was how someone so loved could internalize so much hate?  Bubbly, loud, and well liked described the public her: all smiles and jokes.  Why was the internal, but true, form so opposite?  How could such artificial light have such a heavy shadow? 

She hated to cry.  She even hated the sheer thought of it: liquid weakness, staining her cheeks with proof, ruining her make-up and self-esteem.  She seldom cried in front of people.  Crying in front of someone, no matter their importance, rendered too much power.  Surely crying was the very definition of loss of control.
However, on those damned days where her control slipped, her favorite place to cry was driving alone in her car, listening to some sad, whining song.  In a car, she was constantly moving.  There was no need to dwell on the last tear-filled second, because she was already separate from that spot of weakness; ahead of it, beyond it, never to return. 

He deemed her the kind of person one never forgets.
She was a major event in his life, one that a soul (even a soul as manipulated and broken as his) does not so easily forget.  The way her dead eyes lit up in her rare moments of euphoria; they way her same dead eyes burned when she was angry.  Such qualities took his breath away.  Her smell intoxicated him, begging him closer while her body pushed him away.  Seeing her here, like this, after all this time, was like committing suicide.  It hurt him to watch her fake smiles with some stranger.  The desire to reach out, touch her, feel her skin, was almost impossible to resist.
Their eyes met.
He deemed her the kind of person one never forgets.
She deemed him the kind of person one wishes they never met.