M e m o r i e s

ALEX'S POV-

I sat down on the sidewalk, tears rolling down my cheeks. It was almost past ten in the morning but nobody was walking by. The area was very quiet and no cars were to be seen on the road.

I put my head on my knees and pulled them towards my chest. Doing this while sitting on a sidewalk was easy for me - my body was really flexible.

I cried silently as time ticked by. My head was throbbing with pain. I couldn't stop being horrified by what I'd just done. Couldn't help but feel disgust towards myself for what I did with Veronica.

I cheated.

I never thought I would. I loved Julie way too much to think about anyone else.

But was I that selfish to just care for my own needs and not hers?

She was dealing with so much already. I didn't want her to deal with this, too. But, if I didn't tell her right then, I would be doing an even bigger mistake. I knew it, yet I couldn't bring myself to tell her.

When I looked up, the sun had already set and it was starting to get dark. I couldn't believe I fell asleep on a sidewalk.

My legs ached as I stretched them. My head was burning. I turned on my phone and texts flooded in. There were seven missed calls from Mom, ten missed calls from Brandon.

But not even one text or call from Julia.

I wondered what she was doing. Was she too busy to even notice I was gone?

Then I changed my mind and started convincing myself that she might be too sad to do anything. She needed me.

When I rang the doorbell, it was Maria who opened the door. She looked at me with something quite known as 'hatred'.

"Where were you?" She asked, keeping her voice low but full of poison. Then suddenly she saw the trails of tears on my cheeks and her voice softened. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, yes, I..." I trailed off, not knowing what to say. "How's Julia?"

"She has been taking your name all day long," Maria looked concerned. This girl seriously took care of her like a sister.

How ironic.

"She has been saying something has happened with you," Maria said and my stomach tied into knots from inside. How could Julia possibly know what has happened with me?

"Why?"

"I don't know," Maria whispered. "After such long struggle I've put her to sleep. I need to go home to my brother, and I was wondering where you are. She has been acting very weird all day. Please take care of her."

She passed me, but then turned and looked me in the eyes. "And yourself," she added.

With that, she was gone.

I entered the bedroom, leaning on the window frame, watching her. The moonlight from her window fell on her face and it practically gave her a different glow. She was so beautiful - the way her dark hair framed her face, the way her eyelashes brushed across her cheeks when her eyes were closed, the way her lips were partly open as she breathed in her sleep - everything adding more to her beauty.

This girl was struggling so hard and all I did was put more burdens on her. I didn't know what else to do so I broke down. I slid down the wall, my heart aching inside my chest and started crying.

"Alex?" Her sweet voice cooed in my mind. I thought it was my hallucination until I felt her hand on my shoulder and knew it was the real her and not my dreams. "Alex."

She looked at me with pure concern in her face. Something in her face started a fire in me. I leaned in and kissed her.

She was taken aback but didn't stop me. I grabbed the back of her head to deepen the kiss but suddenly guilt hit me.

I pulled away as abruptly as I had started and she touched my cheek. "Alex, you've been crying," Her eyes were so sad. "I'm so sorry, I..."

"It's not your fault," I lied. "It's just been a bad day. I'd rather not talk about it."

She nodded in understanding and hugged me. I couldn't help but pull away feeling so repulsed by my own self.

I was so disgusting that after cheating on my partner I was hugging her.

I had no right to be near her.

"I'm so sorry Julia," I pulled away and stood up. Her face was blank, showing no emotion. "But I have to go."

She didn't respond as I tore through the front door. She just sat there, being the sad creature that she was.

---

"After another week, she had started coming to college. She talked to everyone, but something was odd about her. The energy and the smile that she had before was no more there. I thought that she needed more time but two months passed and she was no better. If I mentioned it to her she would just smile and say that she was okay when we both knew she was not.

I had long back decided to stop thinking about the night I spent with Veronica. But the guilt ate at me every single night. Neither could I bring myself to tell Julia nor forget about it.

Veronica kept her promise and didn't tell anyone. At least that was one good thing.

As days passed, Julia started changing more and more. She cried sometimes but the other times she'd just shut herself off. She seemed to be living in her own world. If someone asked her something they would first have to snap her out of the trance she was usually in. She started lagging behind in her studies, too. Maria and I dragged her to a therapist but they couldn't help her either.

I had not yet given up hope, and I constantly tried. I tried to take her out on dates but she wouldn't talk to me like a normal person. She would only smile and say one or two words at a time.

I started thinking she was distancing herself because she fell out of love with me.

I knew I was losing her. I was losing the person I loved.

But I could do nothing.

Soon enough it was like talking to the wall, she wouldn't respond to me anymore. She was cutting off every relation - everything and everyone she knew. Shouting, screaming, crying, begging, nothing helped.

I

t was taking my all to hold onto the person she used to be before. She was caging herself in. I could see everything but I couldn't help her.

It was then that I made my second mistake.

I mentally gave up.

I took her as a lost cause and stopped trying. Maybe if I'd tried long enough I would've been able to break her free from her world. One where she constantly killed herself.

I got tired of chasing after her. She made things so hard that I could never catch up. I was trying to force something that wasn't there. It felt like I was begging her to reciprocate the love I was giving, when in reality, she just never felt the way I did. That's when it clicked, I could no longer beg for her to love me or give me the attention that I desired. So I took myself out of the equation, closed that chapter and started a new one.

But I gave up. I couldn't make anymore efforts. I was so tired of trying, I was so damn tired. I started distancing away from her.

She didn't even try to hold me back.

But I should've understood. I should've known that she was not trying because no matter how much she wanted to she couldn't. She was too weak. Both emotionally and physically weak to keep me in her life.

And then I made my third biggest mistake.

I went to seek comfort from Veronica. The girl who made feel so fucking pathetic since the very first night we shared the same bed.

I kept sleeping with her, trying to seek the love in her arms that I wanted from Julia, trying to find the warmth that our relationship lacked. And soon enough I had convinced myself that she was the one for me. I had fallen out of love with Julie.

When all I did was fool myself.

As the days passed by I felt Julie distancing herself away from me too. She was going out of my reach. And then she went so far that even if I tried I wouldn't have been able to take her back into my life.

That's when I decided I needed to talk it out with her. I couldn't stay in her life and destroy her anymore. I needed to move on, and let her move on."

It was a clear night when I took her out to our favorite spot, the clearing on the cliff on the outskirts of our town. We had discovered this place around five years ago, and we often used to sneak in and smoke here during our school days. This was her favorite place, because the moon was completely visible from there.

The Moon.

One thing that she loved more than anything else in the world.

More than me.

That is, when she used to love me.

"So much has changed since we've last been here," I said to her. "Hasn't it?"

She didn't reply, and continued to gaze at the moon.

"Julie, I..." I looked at her as she slowly turned away from the moon; her pale skin in the white sundress a contrast to the darkness around us.

"I am so sorry, Jules," I said. "I... We can't continue this anymore. I have to leave."