Brett

"Who was it?" My mother asked eagerly, walking out of the bedroom with wide eyes as I closed the door behind me.

I walked to the fridge and lifted the milk carton up to my lips, taking a long swig and ignoring my mother's question.

"Sweetie?" Her hand rested on my shoulder. I could hear the concern in her voice, the worry.

"It was no one, Ma." I lied. Becca wasn't no one, she was everyone. Everything. Her.

My mother's hand dropped from my shoulder as I spun around quickly, walking into the bedroom and closing the door behind me before she could get in a million more questions. I didn't want to talk about my feelings. I didn't want to talk about how the girl I love has no trust in me -- how she seemed hellbent on stopping herself from falling in love with me.

I didn't want to talk because talking meant feeling and right now, I didn't want to feel.

I walked quickly to my closet, needing to do something to preoccupy myself and take my mind off Becca. Pulling out my duffle bag, I threw it onto my bed and began to pack up all of my clothes.

I needed to get the hell out of this hotel and all the memories that came with it.

Staring down at the bed, I couldn't help but think about the night Becca slept here with me. I thought about the thousands of thoughts that occupied my mind as she slept beside me, the thousand of things I wanted to do with her, do to her. Yet, all we did was sleep and somehow, that was enough.

But it wasn't enough anymore. The indescribable love I had for her wasn't enough to stop us both from drowning. I couldn't bear the weight of both our hearts on my own shoulders, because everything I felt was too much that one day it would come crashing down on top of me.

Today was that day.

I needed Becca to love me. To trust me. To want me in all the permanent ways I wanted her because without reciprocation, what was I doing? I watched my mother love a man who never loved her back and look what that amounted to. One-sided love was dangerous, it was a ticking time bomb, one that got closer to exploding every day that passed by.

It felt as if I had spent the last months running after a girl who was always two steps ahead of me -- but she was running too fast, making it impossible for me to ever catch up to her.

It struck me that I was a constant, a permanent being in a world of change. I was always here. Waiting and wanting -- wanting Becca's love and waiting for her to give it to me. But my rope had reached its end and I wasn't capable of waiting any longer.

No, I needed to be. If Becca couldn't realize how she felt about me when we were together, then maybe us being apart would allow her to see it.

Sometimes, we had to lose everything in order to realize how much it actually meant to us.

It would kill me to do this, to distance myself from the only person who had ever managed to make me feel whole again, but we both needed this. I had become so dependent on Becca that the thought of being without her scared me.

I used to think I was fearless until I met her, for living in a world where we don't coexist scared me beyond comprehension.

I mindlessly picked up the t-shirt of mine that Becca had worn the night she spent here. She was so shy, shifting uncomfortably as I looked her up and down, up and down, not able to get enough of her. The dirty thoughts running laps in my head were screaming so loudly that it shocked me that she couldn't hear them, because they were all I could hear. I remembered questioning how someone could manage to look so fucking beautiful in a raggy old t-shirt but somehow, she made it possible. I smiled. And then I folded the shirt and placed it in the bag, upon the dozens of shirts that looked just like it.

They say distance makes the heart grow fonder and all that crap, well I hope 'they' know what they're talking about.

I severed the metaphorical strand tying me to Becca, cut it off completely until I was just me -- Brett Wells. Captain of the football team.

Jock? Yes.

Lover? No.

I zipped up the duffel bag, took one last painful look around this room. The white walls weren't so white anymore, they seemed to carry all the memories that had taken place in this tiny room that somehow felt like it held the entire world. Memories that would be erased as soon as another occupant stepped foot in here and replaced them with their own.

Slinging the bag over my shoulder, I quickly put on the pair of jeans I had left on my bed then walked to the door, declaring to my mother that we were moving out of the hotel.

She didn't question me or put up a fight. I guess the look on my face was enough for her to understand that this was what I needed. My mom silently obeyed, gathering the few things she brought with her and following me into the hallway.

I shut the door without a single glance back into the room. This wooden barrier between me and the memories made me feel like I could finally breathe again.

"Where are we going?" My mother asked me, walking quickly to keep up with my brisk pace.

"Home."

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Super short chapter but necessary none the less. I think that Brett is correct, that sometimes you need to lose something of vital importance to have that moment of clarity and realize how much it/they meant to you. What do you guys think? x