Truth
by raile
Summary: The one truth he could not run away from.
Disclaimer: the ones you don't know are mine, the ones you do aren't.
Rating: T, to be safe
There was something to be said for tenacity.
Or was it stubbornness?
The truth was, there was only so much running one person could do. He could run as much and as far as he could, run until his very soul fell ragged against the earth. He should have known that no matter how much running he did, he would never be able to run away from the one thing he could never run from, no matter how much, how long he tried.
Himself.
But he ran anyway. Because he was stubborn that way. He ran until he felt himself break, until he couldn't say or think or do anything else. Until he ran out of places to run to, faces to avoid and even more places to hide in the times where he wasn't running. Until there was no alcohol left to consume, no intoxicating liquid to drown himself in until he lost himself, even for only a second.
He ran until he was a bloody mess, where his skin broke, where his knees bled and his feet could no longer take him. He ran until he no longer could, limp with exhaustion, close to death, lingering at his door, ready for the taking but denied, again and again, because it simply wasn't his time.
And it was there where he lingered when it had caught up with him.
Truth.
Undeniable, harsh, vicious, unforgiving truth—more cruel than death, more punishing and less understanding that held no prejudice, no thought other than for what is.
She was gone.
It was one thing to accept this for a fact. He had made his peace with that a long time ago. He could forgive that, her no longer being with him. He could forgive that in time.
The truth was not regarding whether he missed her or not. He missed her, he truly did, with all of his being. But he could forgive that too. He could miss her and live with it. He knew he would, had expected he would.
Her leaving and his missing her were not what made him want to run himself to his demise. He could deal with those things. He's handled losses in his life before, he was used to it. He could cope with that and had, in fact, began to process it all when he was sure she was never going to be back in his arms again.
The truth that hit him, the truth that made him want to escape until he could no longer remember his name was the one truth that hit him out of the blue like a sucker punch to the gut.
It robbed him of his breath and brought him to his knees, gasping for air and burning his eyes with the sting of his own tears.
The truth he had neglected, the very truth he had denied had been there, the truth that now tormented him even during his waking hours.
It was the same truth he could not forgive her, could not forgive himself for.
The very truth that led him closest to his ruin was the fact that he was in love with her.
It was the truth that made him run, made him hide, made him deny her very existence.
She had exposed him, made him vulnerable and revealed parts of himself he had never let anyone else get close to in so many years. So many painless years—all of that she obliterated with one fell swoop, one flutter of her eyelashes, one kiss.
Like a sitting duck, she had shot him and left him for dead. She didn't even so much as pick her prize, more than satisfied with her kill and walked away. She shot him, straight through and through and then there was nothing else.
She'd broken his heart and in turn, broke him.
Barely a goodbye and without even the grace of an explanation—first, she was there and then, suddenly, nothing.
Then he was back to being alone, back to being by himself, accompanied by the shadows, engulfed in the pain she had caused by taking one simple step after the other away from him.
No looking back, not even to see if he had even been able to lick his wounds, nothing.
She had left him to fix himself, to put himself back together, the seemingly insurmountable task, left to him, the broken one.
He could not run, not anymore so he would try and hate her. There wasn't much else left for him to do, stationary and crippled. So he will try and hate her, maybe even forget her.
Try, he would, though a part of him knew.
Forget, hate, loathe—
Whatever he might try, one simple truth will remain.
She will still be gone, always gone and he would still be in love with her.
Always.