The Rest of Me

by Ashley Munoz

She watched me go with one lone tear slipping down her cheek and a look that should have killed me on the spot.

His eyes met mine, somehow offering me this promise that surely wasn’t his to give, but my heart reached out and took it anyway.

There was nothing but darkness and decisions between us,

I put a smile on my face and walked downstairs, hating myself each step of the way.

She was supposed to be with her husband and stay happily married forever while I was supposed to end up broken, shattered, and disgraced.

I was frozen, torn between the lust filling my veins and the pain slicing through my soul.

I wanted to scream back and tell him I loved him too, but I didn’t. I just sat there and waited.

“Just know…as you wish for the asshole who did this to you to get what he deserves, know he did. He fell in love, so hard, so entirely that he didn’t want to breathe without her. Know he pictured marriage and Christmases, graduations and soccer practice. I wanted the entire thing with you, and it’s so fitting to have it all ripped away. I deserve this. I’ll never forget you, Layla. I’ll never stop loving you.”

do whatever you have to do, but just come back to them. You took their hearts with you when you left.”

I whispered all my desperation into her skin, like my words were ink, branding her forever.

I was in love, in lust, in over my head.