Alone with You

by Aly Martinez

My chest ached as I took in her tear-stained cheeks. I wanted to tell her I loved her and, no matter what she thought, I had loved her every minute of every day since she was sixteen years old and walked into my math class wearing a smile that branded my soul. Nothing would change that. Not even death.

“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.”

“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.”

“Then, I’m going to make you come so hard, you will question whether you’ve ever had an orgasm without me.”

“And then I’m going to fuck you until the only thing you know for sure is that you are, and have always been, mine.”

“Hey, True,” she called just before I crossed the street. “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.

She cut the engine. “Are you sure you’re up for this?” I looked over at her and told her the God’s-honest truth. “I don’t know. But I love you, and if this is where you are, there is nowhere else in the entire world I’d rather be. Not even the past.”