Fading Away
Time didn't stop for them.
The school days carried on, the seasons shifted, and life moved forward whether Caesar was ready or not. At some point, the ache of losing Blythe became less of a sharp pain and more of a dull, lingering weight—always there, but easier to ignore.
"Caesar, you coming to the party Friday night?" A voice, bright and full of life, cut through his thoughts. It was Liam, his best friend since childhood, his constant companion through thick and thin.
Caesar forced a smile, the warmth of Liam's presence a stark contrast to the chilling silence that still echoed within him. "Maybe," he said, his voice a pale shadow of its usual confidence. "I'll see."
It helped that there were distractions.
People filled the empty spaces, voices replaced the silence, and soon, he barely had time to think.
Or at least, that's what he told himself.
He found himself drawing deeper into his work, throwing himself into his studies, seeking refuge in the familiar structure and logic of his textbooks. The world outside seemed to blur, the sharp edges of his reality softened by the comforting, predictable routine.
But it wasn't enough.
Blythe wasn't the only thing fading from his life.
There were parts of himself that felt distant too, slipping away piece by piece. He didn't know when it had started, but there were moments when he looked in the mirror and didn't quite recognize the person staring back.
"Caesar, are you alright?" Liam asked, his brow furrowed with concern. "You've been quiet all week. What's going on?"
Caesar shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. "Just tired," he muttered, avoiding Liam's gaze.
The way he spoke was different—more calculated, more controlled. The way he laughed felt foreign, like an echo of something real rather than the real thing itself.
He was surrounded by people, yet somehow, he had never felt more alone.
The worst part was that no one noticed.
Or maybe they did, but they didn't care.
To them, he was still Caesar—the guy everyone wanted to be around, the one whose name was always in someone's mouth, the one who had become something bigger than himself.
"Hey, Caesar, didn't you used to have more of a spark? " a voice chimed in, accompanied by a playful nudge. It was Emily, always bold, always observant, always quick with a quip.
He laughed, but the sound felt empty, a hollow echo of a past self. "Just tired," he said, a familiar mantra. "Just need a break."
And maybe that was the problem.
Maybe he had spent so much time trying to be what people expected that he had forgotten who he was supposed to be.
Who he used to be.
He thought about Blythe less and less.
Not because he wanted to.
Not because he had truly moved on.
But because there was no point in holding onto something that was already gone.
They weren't fighting anymore.
They weren't anything anymore.
And that realization settled over him like a final, inevitable truth.
Some things weren't meant to last.
And maybe they had never been meant to, either.
He felt like a ghost, flitting through the world, a phantom presence in a world that had moved on without him.
He found himself drifting further and further away, fading into the background, becoming a shadow of the person he used to be. And the silence, the deafening silence that had filled the space where Blythe once was, now felt like a part of him, an inescapable part of who he had become.