the broken one's

Some people like reading, others like playing basketball, or cooking or running or painting. And then there’s a small portion who like fixing things, they like projects, broken things. They find broken people and they try to fix them, and the best part of it is sometimes they succeed. But sometimes you find that one broken person that can’t be fixed, they can’t be healed. And you see that you might just end up the same way.

-

People say they’ve been together on and off for around 3 years. They say ‘Everyone has their struggles, they’ll figure it out.’ They say that they’re soulmates. What they don’t talk about is the heartbreak he goes through every time. Every time he thinks changed, she disappoints him. Every time they give it another go, he ends up alone and she’s in another’s arms. Every time he thinks “this time it’s going to be different,” it’s not. Because he has too much hope, and every time she breaks his heart, a bit of it chips away. But then she comes back, and he’s rebuilt, he believes in her, he loves her so much that he holds onto his hope again. But it always ends the same way. Heartbreak.

People used to say that he used to be a nice kid. The one that would help the elderly cross the street, help his mother when she asked, finished all his homework on time. But then he found her. In the beginning she was a nice kid too. Did all the right things. But her family was broken and soon enough she began to break too. They were good friends, he helped her, held her, he tried to fix her, but she was too far gone. Her blood had gone cold. But he stayed with her, he stuck with her no matter what. The years went on. Sometimes he would make her smile, make her see all the good things left. Sometimes she forgot. There were times where he would find someone else holding her, she said “it meant nothing.” He deserved better, he had potential, he still had his smile. But he believed she could be saved, so he stayed.

-

The years went on and his pain deepened. His smile had begun to fade. The people saw it. They worried for him. Now it seemed like he wasn’t looking at the world around him. He was always in thought. In another world it seemed. He seemed sad. Angry. And she was nowhere to be seen.

He should’ve known, because it wasn’t right. He never wanted something out of a movie but he knew that this wasn’t how it should be. He should’ve known, because it happened every time. He didn’t want to believe what he saw. But he had too. He had to face the truth. He almost thought that after all this time, they could have been something. That they could’ve worked it out. That after all this time she could’ve at least tried, tried to hold on. But that didn’t happen so he needed to move on.

The other night he thought of her again, called her on the phone. The line was dead. He wanted her there even though he wanted to be alone. From the beginning he knew they could never work, but he held on. He tried his best though he knew he’d be in tears again. He could never move on, never learn. He could take it all for her, he would have done anything if she’d just tried. He knew the people talked about him, some of them said they were destined, others said that it’d never work. And he didn’t know who to believe.

The next night he was at her door, looked inside to see her holding someone else. He thought she was alone. She seemed happy, maybe it was him. He couldn’t see it now but he was more broken than all of them combined. He was lost and on edge. He had nothing to lose, nothing to see. So he jumped, he jumped into the blackness of his mind. The demons on his back hurt and he gave in.

He now lies awake at night, thinking of the mistakes he might have made, wondering why he wasn’t enough, wondering what he did wrong. He dreams of her, being with her, but it’s more of a nightmare. It seems she was never his to lose, but he did anyway. He sacrificed everything, but it seems as though she was blind. He had laid with her while she talked about what she’d lost, never seeing his pain. They had found each other, and fell in love. But he wasn’t enough. Now he’s alone, he’s got a gun, a knife, a rope, but he won’t do it. He wanted to live for her and fight for her, but the fight within him is gone. He lets her go, he lets her live. She doesn’t see the pain he’s in.

-

Years passed, I saw him try to move on through the window of my house. She never came to visit. He began to cling to medicine as his saviour. We all waved to him on the streets, he waved back from time to time, but he never saw us there. His Mum passed away a few months after he attempted the first time. I brought him brownies, but he didn’t answer the door. I saw him through the window and smiled, his eyes were blank. There came a time where we stopped seeing him on the streets. The people got worried, they checked his house and there he was.

He was buried with his family at the town graveyard, it was a lovely service. She didn’t show. He never knew me, I was just the old lady across the street watching him go through his pain. I tried to talk to him, I paid for a therapist, but he was too broken. I wrote his story, because of his potential. He could’ve growed up to be an astronaut, a doctor, a writer. But he was held back. I wrote his story so that others in the world can remember that broken things can be healed, they will leave scars but your scars show you what you have achieved and moved on from. Don’t let that one person hold you back, you deserve more. The people say they were destined; but your destiny, your soulmate, shouldn’t hold you back, they should push you forward even if it means leaving the first time. Not everyone can be fixed, not everyone wants to and some people just need the right person even if it's not the best person.