I'm so proud of myself for slowly getting more in touch with my emotions. Sure, doing so leaves me vulnerable to pain, but it also gives me the capacity to feel great joy. I was feeling a lot of that joy when a sad but beautiful song started playing in the background. I played it on a loop before writing this story, and, in seconds, I was crying a waterfall. I feel more balanced because of it, though. Like I have reached a level of equilibrium and peace.

Happy 2018, my fellow human! I hope you have a good one.

Song of Inspiration and Mood Music: "You are the Reason" by Calum Scott

I didn't stop crying for a long time and didn't know why. Then I took my heart into my hands and realized that it was still bleeding.

Drew buried an arm beneath his pillow and shifted himself to face the wall on his left. He shut his eyes, pushing tears down his cheeks, and willed himself to sleep. It didn't matter how many times he stared at that framed picture on top of his dresser. Two years later, it still hurt.

Images of her flashed in his head. Her bouncy chocolate locks. Her twinkling sapphire eyes. The knot in his chest that twisted when she smiled for him.

Drew huffed and turned back to the picture.

He had told her that he loved her. He had said that he was sorry he didn't say it more often. She was supposed to leap into his arms and tell him that she forgave him. That they would forget those stupid fights and start over.

Then, for the first time in his life, her smile had broken him. It had usually lifted the weight off of his shoulders. But at that night, it split his heart in half.

And he was never the same.

He wanted to die before she could say it. He would rather imagine it, though painful as that still was. Real life didn't always turn out as badly as it did in his head. Sometimes, the outcome was simple. Inevitable.

Just like their end.

Somehow she knew the power she had that day, how easily she could make him crumble at the spot. He had known that she knew because that was the one thing he had always made certain: he would do anything for her, give her his life if he couldn't give her anything else. But sometimes, he didn't give her his everything. Sometimes, he only gave her what he felt like giving. Much too often, he gave her nothing.

And because she had nothing to hold onto, she let go.

Drew tried to remember what she felt like in his arms. How warm her cheeks have been against his neck, how it tickled when she had laughed onto his shoulder. How, during the happiest and saddest moments of her life, the first thing she had sought for was his embrace. She used to need him like he needed her.

Now she could only hold him in his dreams. That was, if he managed to sleep tonight.