Alone with You

by Aly Martinez

“Are you going to kiss me now, True?” “I’ve been waiting all fucking day for you to ask me that.”

She needed time. To think. To remember. To come to terms with the fact that something profound still existed between us. Time was no match for a love like ours—even if tragedy had been a hurdle I’d failed to overcome.

“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you back then. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the man you needed me to be. I’m sorry I gave up on our family. And I’m sorry I didn’t fight harder, because I have missed you every fucking day since you walked out of my life. That is what I mean when I say I’m sorry.”

“Back then… I hated myself. I didn’t deserve to feel better. But when I’m with you, even now, I can breathe. I don’t know what it is, but something about you has always softened the agony, making it so I don’t feel like I’m suffocating.”

“I deserve every bit of hate and anger and resentment you feel for me. But make no mistake, I have never, not ever, not for one fucking second of my entire god-forsaken life, stopped loving you.”

“Come back to me.” Those four words hit me like a surge of electricity, jolting my deadened heart back into rhythm.

“Just so you know, I would have sat in that house with you for the rest of my life, completely alone, just to be with you.”

I hadn’t just let go of Gwen all those years ago. I’d let go of an entire beautiful future together. And after all the tragedy I’d experienced, that might have been the most devastating reality of all.