10:05am

It was 11:36pm. We were hidden away in a camper van in the middle of nowhere. I handed you confessions and you said, "I'll always be here."

Three years later and all I could see was the reflection of your numb face in the review mirror of your car. My whole life was quickly becoming an avalanche due to your deteriorating kindness, and all you could think to do was drive away.

It was midnight at my house and you were crying in my arms, saying how terrified you were I'd eventually give up on you. I swore a million times I wouldn't, sewed the oath to my heart so I'd always keep it. I held you together until you were laughing again and we knew the dawn would come soon.

Who knew I'd eventually be having nightmares of you running like a broken record, wake up thinking I'd been shot because reality and dreams were one and the same? Where were you then?

I was throwing up my hopes in a toilet cubicle because my hands wouldn't stop shaking and I couldn't find oxygen and I thought the world was out to get me but you held my hair back and then, maybe more than ever, I wholeheartedly believed each of your promises. I believed you'd stay.

I was rotting in my bed, sure the sunlight would burn me, thinking the rest of the world an assassin. I was trying to figure out how you could leave so easily and only ever finding one answer: I was worth nothing. The day was dark and my mind was darker and where were you then?

The sun had gone down and we were taking refuge in a park, staring up at the light polluted stars. We were fleeing from tomorrows even as we talked about the elusive 'some day'. We didn't say 'forever' that night but it settled between us like a lifeline.

I was screaming and collapsing until my voice was hoarse, throat raw, knees scraped. I was begging you for answers, throwing myself off cliff faces in the hopes of catching closure. And where were you? Nowhere? Or just everywhere that I wasn't?

Insanity began to coil around us and even though you made me feel like padded white walls and straight jackets, I swore and swore and swore I'd stay. I received a knife wound for each time I was close to you, slowly bleeding out more and more through each conversation but my pledge was still etched onto my heart so I kept handing it to you as if that could save us.

I was butchering my own esteem, with the goal of feeling close to you, of understanding you. I took apart my past, studied it with forceps and scissors and microscopes, trying to discover where it all went wrong. Where were you? Getting drunk with your new friends, massacring my old best friend, buying plane tickets. (Still running away I suppose.)

You were packing your suitcase and I was still trying to comprehend the word 'goodbye' and how it could tumble from your lips with such ease. You were cutting ties, cutting your hair, cutting my heartstrings and all I could do was watch you perform as the star of the show in my apocalypse.

You took yourself apart and I stayed. You took me apart and I stayed. You changed and changed and I stayed. You created a drought and I stayed. You put a funnel in my mouth, poured in half the ocean, and I stayed. You ran away and I stayed and I stayed and I stayed.

You stole six months from me. A year. More.

Now the flowers are blooming in vibrant shades once again. The sun is more warm than scorching. I have exorcised the self-doubts that you planted. My heart is beating in time with vows to myself. It is 10:05am and I do not wonder where you are. I do not think it matters, do not think I care. I am just grateful you are not here with me.