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Brooke wishes it were different.
Wishes more than anything in the whole wide world that things could be different.
Wishes she could wake up next to him. His deep brown eyes swallowing her whole every morning.
Wishes she could kiss him slowly.
Wishes they had time.
Wishes she could tell him to stay in bed as he protests lightly.
Wishes he would give up his halfhearted attempts to leave.
Wishes they could spend hours, days, years wrapped up in a comforter that is ill-named.
Wishes they could find their own comfort in each other.
Wishes the night wasn’t so long.
Wishes that her lips didn’t still sting from their last kiss.
Wishes that a broken streetlamp didn’t remind her of the time they stumbled drunkenly into one and ran away when it flickered dangerously.
Wishes that wishes would stop flowing from her mouth like water and “I miss you’s.”
It feels lonesome. The air does.
The air feels like loneliness and darkness and everything Brooke had grown accustomed to tolerating.
And sometimes it was fine.
Sometimes the streetlamp looked like a streetlamp.
And the tears in her eyes were someone else’s.
And the comforter was comfortable.
But sometimes the broken door hinge squeaked too loud.
Or a window shut and was never re-opened.
Or a boy in a bar looked at her with deep brown eyes that didn’t swallow her.
It felt like a loss she never stopped grieving.
She swears by everything she didn’t mean to end up here.
Thinking about him again.
But with the night came the thoughts of him and his smile and how he always smelled like cinnamon. And how he never knew the right time to say things, but bless him he tried.
He tried so hard to get her to stay.
He still does.
When she slips out of bed at an ungodly hour, pulling on her clothes in the dark, the only light coming from the reflection of her tears and the passing cars.
He still tries.
He’ll pull at her arm and make filthy promises that ring out like a slap.
She doesn’t want those promises. They don’t fill the whole anymore.
He will protest her leaving until the door clicks shut. And maybe even after, but he’ll never tell her.
Although one night, he didn’t protest. He watched silently as she did the familiar dance of pretending she was fine. He said nothing until her hand touched the knob.
“Please.”
It was one word.
One tiny
Simple
Word
And suddenly, the whole was filled.