Chapter 8

Sometimes the same ones who asked you to stay one day will be the ones who will let you go tomorrow.

He walked out of there not knowing why he felt that way, he couldn't breathe and fear seemed to have settled inside his bones, maybe it was a panic attack once he had read about it, or maybe it was just despair . He picked up the phone and texted Ian to drop by ilem and then texted her saying he had an unexpected exam so she wouldn't worry, he walked out of the college into the parking lot and sat in the car for a minute. for a while, until he could breathe.

Everything was coming back, memories, smiles, her words that now made more sense than ever, one phrase in particular came to her mind, she said it to him one day when they were both in the car and the air seemed like a wall between them .

“One day you will find someone who has the kind of love that you need, the one that will shake your ground and make you want to lower the stars, the kind of love that will be only yours and no one else's. It's not me and you know it."

It was not important at that time they were angry, there were kisses and I love you after those days.

Sinking into the grief and the memories took him about an hour, everything had been so fast so blurry he had been practicing his speed in the pool for the next competition that was in a month or so, and when he got out of there, on the billboard where they used to put the information of the tournaments and competitions she was. Well her photo actually, smiling with cheeks colored such a vibrant pink against pale skin, those freckles he loved kissing so much scattered all over her face like a shower of stars, in her hair a carefree bun and the brightest smile that had once been given to him by her.

Gabe remembered that day perfectly, she was swimming with him and Ian right there, at the end of all training if you could call it that since it was open training, usually no one could get in when the swim boys were training but that day the coach didn't I was here to see them so Grace swam too. When Grace was gathering her things, Hannah came in and took out that picture.

Under the photo it read, "disappeared person please communicate if she has seen her"

Gabe didn't know why but reading that made it much more real, she wasn't there, almost a month ago she had stopped walking through the halls of Gabe's life and it wasn't real until she saw those letter combinations. He hit the steering wheel repeatedly, yes, he had gone to the police, he had seen the news and yes he had answered a lot of questions but none of that had made him feel that she might not come back, nothing, until that innocent and isolated steering wheel on that forgotten billboard.

Tears began to trickle down his cheeks; Suddenly he wanted her close, suddenly he missed her more, so he started the car and headed home, he needed to find something whatever that would make him feel that she was fine that one day he would find her and that he would return her Let's see, this would all just be bad timing.

His house never seemed to be as far away as that day, everything came back, the kisses, the escapes, the smiles, the fights, the reproaches. It all came back like a blow to the stomach and left him breathless, he hadn't stopped to think how harmful she had been to him, what she had done to what he was, to what he used to be, how she had destroyed that and he had been happy like that.

He had never noticed that she and he were different pieces that no matter how hard they tried, they didn't fit together.

And he got rid of so many things for her to come into his life that now without her everything seemed empty, no one could say he didn't try, he gave her everything he could give her but he wasn't the problem, she never seemed to have enough , it wasn't enough affection, it wasn't enough attention, she wanted a caged bird and he was willing to be, but now no one could say he didn't try, she still walked away, went to live with Hannah and then just disappeared.

"Could you blame someone just for leaving?

I got out of the car and entered her house, Allin was in the kitchen and she was the first to see him arrive.

Hello, hello little brother, how was your day?"

She asked cheerfully.

“Nothing good, are mom and dad home? "

I ask anxiously, what she needed to do could not be done with her parents there.

"No, just ilem in his room."

That was it, he ran upstairs to Grace's room and locked her door, suddenly the scent of her to her washed over him. Lavender, her scent of lavender, the soft scent clung to every wall in that room, everything was the same and different. Everything was in the same place and yet outside of it, the room seemed to revolve around it.

“Gabe get out of there"

Allin begged him from the other side of the door, he didn't answer he couldn't, his throat was closed with a huge and tight knot, the tears came back but they also brought anger; despair, disappointment and rage, everything was black now, he suddenly started throwing things and breaking others until everything was a mess; he was on his knees on the floor there was a notebook lying next to the rug that he had kicked out of place.

“I will always love you Grace."

He pronounced between sobbing and sobbing, opened the notebook and began to read... there was so much of him there, of how she saw him and he never realized that it also hurt her, although there were parts where she seemed to be talking about someone else , found a few photos of them together, the blood test where it said that she was expecting a baby and a letter with no addressee.

You let me burn in this love, only to burn me to ashes. I loved you as much as I could, why wasn't it enough? You never told me how unhappy you were, I could have done something I could have helped you get out of it. Why didn't you say anything?

He asked the inanimate notebook to then throw it away and keep that letter that he was so afraid that it was a goodbye, but he wanted closure, maybe she would at least give him that.

«I can't keep living this lie, I'm sorry» It was all he could read before ilem called him on the other side of the door.

"You were not for me, what a pity that I did not see it until now, you belonged to yourself and I wanted you to stay with me, I'm sorry, I should never have cut your wings like that, I let you fall into the void without a safety net. But I loved you Grace, I'm so sorry it wasn't the love you needed to heal"