Where We Went Wrong

by Kelsey Kingsley

Suddenly, it felt like life had been kicked into high gear and was rushed away with everyone else, leaving me behind to collect the dust.

I believe we are all born with gifts, and one of mine is intuition. I could be having the most ordinary day, until I hear a name, see a sign, or turn a corner, and intuition will strike. Sometimes it comes as a ping in the gut, or as a gentle brush against my heart. And right now, it was a flick against my brain, a sudden rekindling of a memory.

The old are generally bitter. They hate that their time is so limited. They hate that they wasted so much of it, they hate that they took so much of it for granted, and they hate how there was never going to be enough, even if they’d lived to see their one-hundredth birthday.

there was nothing fine about facing Vinnie Marino.

Andy Bennett

Unpredictable and formidable. I hated feeling like this. I couldn’t stand that I loved him and feared him all at the same time.

It wasn't a perfect moment, but it was us. Vinnie and Andy, with all our secrets, darkness, and troubled minds.

“I need you to promise me somethin', okay?” “What?” I asked, pressing my grinning cheek to his chest. “If I ever do hurt you, you'll leave. You got me? You won't stick around for any reason.”

I couldn't understand how I could be so desperate for their care and affection, while simultaneously pushing them further away. I hated myself. I hated my stupid mouth and stupider brain. I was losing my control and the more I tried to hold on, the more slippery it became.

Just like he did. And just like her. They all did. They all leave me, and now I was left with nothing but this bag of blow.

I could see now was the bag of coke. All I could feel was the desperation to tell her I wasn't okay, that I wasn't fine or hanging in there. And all I wanted to do was line it all up into neat little rows and snort it, fast and easy. I was torn up, ripped apart, conflicted and crawling out of my skin. And she was so far away, and I was so alone.

“Calling you mine was worth it, baby boy. It was always worth it, even when it hurt the most.”

liar knows a lie when he sees it, and that little tell always gave her away.

Depression? Rock bottom? Overdose? The possibilities were endless.

It was toxic. There was no doubting that now. This, my relationship with him and what he was doing to himself and me, it was dangerous and scary and so, so unhealthy in every sense of the word. An outsider might look at the situation and think me insane for still being inside that apartment, sitting at that table. An onlooker might say they'd never put themselves in this situation to begin with. But it was my reality now, and no, it wasn't good, but somehow, in the moment, it didn't seem as bad as one might think it should.

I should've felt guilty for putting him through this, but my need to turn off and feel good outweighed any guilt.

I loved her. God, I loved her so much. But if I loved her so damn much, how could I have allowed this to happen? How could I have allowed her to talk me into getting her high, and so easily? This isn't what love does. Love protects. It wraps itself around you like an impenetrable shield and stops the bad shit from infiltrating the fortress you've built. Yet we had seen that bad shit knocking on the door and chose to invite it in.

Everything she's doing with you, maybe she was always destined to do it and you were just, uh, there to open the door to rebellion or somethin’. Her family might blame you for it, when really, her bad girl side has always been begging to come out.”

She fit in with my family like a long-lost missing piece and I wanted so much to glue her into place, to ensure she'd never break free. But I also knew the two of us were playing with fire, and anybody dancing in the flames, was destined to burn.

“But sometimes, love isn’t enough.” “Yeah,” I said, sniffing and turning to head back. “And sometimes, it’s all that matters.”

I know I promised my life to him. I know I promised to stay by his side. But all I cared about, all that truly mattered, was that I was committing my heart and soul, fully and completely, to this beautifully broken man. For better or worse. Until death do us part, to then be reunited somewhere else. If you die, I'll die.

It felt so wrong. I felt like a thief, the robber of her potential and life, and I hung my head in shame.

I was never perfect, but she was.

And I ruined her.

“I can't tell you what's in the future, honey pie. I don't know if you'll be able to work things out with him one day, or if you were only meant to know him for a few months. None of us ever really know how long someone we love will be in our lives, but we can hope that no matter how long we have, we love them enough.”

“Enough for what?” He squeezed my knee in a loving grasp. “To make a difference.”

addiction doesn't have one face, does it? Sometimes it hides behind the guy down on his luck, just looking for an escape, and sometimes, it grabs ahold of a guy trying to recover from a broken leg … or a nurse just desperate to escape the ghosts.

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

We were fire and gasoline, and together, we could set our world ablaze.

the pain of those words, as calm as they might've been delivered, pierced my heart and traveled beyond flesh, bone, and muscle, until they touched my soul.

this was the only piece of my husband I physically had in my possession. There was nothing else. No threadbare t-shirt that smelled of his skin. No photographs or simple mementos from past holidays. Up until just seconds ago, he might as well had been nothing more than a ghost of my past.

Troubled, sure, but I've never known troubled to mean bad.”

the problem with heroes is that they're not immune to mortality.

But every bit of good is always contrasted by something bad. That's the beauty of being alive, and my addiction to you was so beautiful. But it was still an addiction and that type of obsession has always been my downfall.

that are worth having 'cause otherwise, we'd never appreciate them.”

Damaged does not equate unworthy.

I was hurt and rough around the edges. But I also wasn't doomed to be a prisoner of the past if I didn't want to be, and I was so tired of being locked up.

Maybe, in order to truly fall in love with our callings, we first have to explore and resist. Maybe we need to feel the pain of denial, to know how good it feels to give in and let it flow. And, I realized, this was the greatest high of all.

I thought about all of the promises time had broken since then, and I spent the minutes of the song wondering where we went wrong. We had been so good together, hadn’t we? He, the broken bad boy, and I, the innocent girl destined to put him back together. But tropes are meant for predictable movies and cheesy romance novels. They didn’t fit into the real world, with real people and real problems. And no matter how deep I delved into it, I couldn’t pinpoint any one pivotal moment that had ruined everything, and I wondered if maybe it had simply always been.

It occurred to me then that love isn't just the simple act of being with someone, it’s also carrying the weight of their truth and making it your own. Just to lighten the load and make their life that much easier.

It was an amazing thing, though, when I really thought about it. How all the horrible things in our lives seemed to be so perfectly choreographed, and maybe even designed to bring us here, to this revelation, and to bring us back together.