From the very first time I tasted her lips, she was mine. With that cherry red lip-gloss and her hands on her hips, all sass and snark and attitude – she was mine but I fucked things up with her that time too and that damn graduation party.
Who the fuck knows at eighteen-years-old that the girl he felt up at a party would turn out to be his entire world years down the line? I sure as hell didn’t. I drank too much and I didn’t even get to remember what should have been the best fucking night of my life. I kissed those perfect lips, slid my hands up her tight shirt and tried not to blow my load when she moaned into my mouth. Then, I blacked out, forgetting all of the important things and walked away the next morning like the cocky little punk I was and tried to forget about her. I thought I’d done a pretty good job of it until four and a half months ago, when I saw her again. All that bullshit I’d spouted off to my best friend about how it’s unnatural to spend your life with one woman…fuck, what I wouldn’t give to go back and beat the shit out of that stupid asshole who thought he knew everything.
Eighteen weeks spent fighting her continued brush-offs and fighting with her when I should have been on my knees begging her to never leave me.
Eighteen days spent learning about what made her into the woman she was and trying my hardest to prove to her that she was worth more.
Eighteen minutes spent praying to a God I’d never believed in, begging Him not to take her from me.
Eighteen seconds too late.
It seemed like an eternity waiting on that front lawn for one of the firemen to carry her alive out of that house, but it only took eighteen seconds. Eighteen seconds between the first body bag and the second that ended my life as I know it.
I’ve counted each and every minute with her these last few months, the good and the bad. 181,440 minutes that I would give anything to do over. Sitting here with a half-empty bottle of whiskey and some dive bar I don’t even remember the name of, I count the drops of condensation on my glass as they slide down, each one fading away and disappearing into the napkin underneath it just like every moment I spent with her. I had her and I let her slip through my fingers. I should have held tighter, fought harder, gotten there sooner.
I’ll never run my fingers through the long, crimson hair that reminded me so much of fire when the sun hit it. I’ll never feel the heat of her body pressed to mine again or the way she’d whisper my name against my lips right before she came.
Fuck, that goddamn sigh…it was like she just breathed my name, as if it were the oxygen in her lungs that gave her life. I can still hear that fucking sound every time I close my eyes and it completely guts me.
She branded her name on my heart and I know I’ll never be the same. I’ll never get the chance to tell her that I don’t fucking care about the scars on her body. I don’t care about anything but seeing her smiling and hearing her laugh.
Staring up at the clock on the wall behind the bar, I realize it’s been eighteen hours since I last saw her alive. In my mind’s eye, I see her standing there, a flush on her cheeks and determination in her eyes as she told me to go. I did as she asked because I was angry and I knew she was hurting. I couldn’t stand the thought of hurting her any more than I already had. It seems that all I’ve ever done is hurt her.
She told me to go, and I did. I left her alone in that bedroom and I didn’t fight for her. I should have stayed in that damn room until she finally talked to me. I let my anger get the best of me and I turned my back on her to be taken by a sick fuck looking for revenge.
If only I would have stayed.
“Jesus Christ! Get me a gurney and some oxygen! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!”
I hear shouts and the rustling of leaves from somewhere in the distance, but it feels like a dream. The voices are muffled, like people are shouting underwater. I don’t want to open my eyes. Everything hurts. My head is pounding, my skin feels raw and my throat burns. I can feel someone poking and prodding at me and I want to scream at them to stop, but I can’t make any words come out. Each time I try to speak, it feels like someone is rubbing a hot coal against my vocal chords.
I just want to sleep. I want to stay in this beautiful oblivion between sleep and waking up where I don’t have to think about everything that’s sitting right at the edge of my mind, waiting to take over – rope, threats, kitchen, fire, guns, daddy…
“It’s okay, Phina, try not to move. We need to make sure nothing’s broken.”
I must have made a noise of pain. I want to tell the voice it’s not the physical pain that’s killing me right now; it’s the mental pain. I see his face through the fire, the one that haunted my dreams and called me so many bad names. I see him in a different light, one filled with love and regret and apology. He traded his life for mine, the ultimate act of love. I don’t want to think about it, I don’t want to remember. It’s so much easier for him to be a monster in my mind than a savior.