Amber Smith

“It’s true. Just because someone has always been seen as this incredible person—this hero—it doesn’t mean that’s the truth. Or that’s who they really are,” I say.

I open my mouth again, the words almost there, wanting so badly to come out. All that honesty saturating the atmosphere, filling in the gaps that exist between us. It does stuff to my brain, like a drug; it makes me want to tell the truth. I feel dangerously capable.

take a breath as I try to memorize him, and then finally I turn away.

He came into my room. It was 2:48—I looked at the clock—by 2:53 it was over,”

And I’m just a girl, a girl who needs to pick up her own pieces and put them back together herself.

. I stare at my hands—these steady, capable things—capable of things.

get the feeling that his arms are the only thing holding these broken pieces of me together.

There’s a brief moment of silence for what we’ve lost. And in that moment, it ends. Finally. The past of us officially comes to an end.

I pull my pillow over my head and I cry so hard I don’t know how I’ll ever stop. I cry for what feels like days. I cry until there are no more tears, like I have used them all up, like maybe I have broken my damn tear ducts.

Just hide me from the world.