But it never happened and I am so damned sorry for that.

Maybe in another life it could have worked out. Maybe in one where I wasn’t such a lost cause, I could love you the way you deserve to be loved.

Please know I’ll miss you more than I can ever put to words.

X—David

“You ready,” Dad calls out from the living room. When I walk out there, he’s holding my bags, standing by the door. “You sure you want to do this? Nothing’s ever so bad you can’t fix it with flowers and chocolate.”

“Not gonna happen, Dad,” I dismiss his attempt at help. “Let’s get out of here before Grace gets home. I don’t want to upset her any more than I already have.”

Dropping the note and her spare key on the side table by the door, I swallow down the lump in my throat before turning to walk away for good.

Because no matter how much I tell myself otherwise, I know I’m no good for her. All I’ll ever do is remind her of what should have been.

Cluing into my quiet, Dad doesn’t say anything else the rest of the ride to my apartment. Thirty minutes later when we pull into the lot, tension fills the cabin of the car. Shifting the car into park, he says, “Are you sure you don’t want to stay with your mother and me? We got a spiffy new kitchen and everything,” he jokes.

“Thanks, Dad. But really, I need to be home.” At least that’s the lie I’ll keep telling myself until some of the pain subsides.

“What about driving? You can’t take yourself anywhere,” he adds, rubbing salt in the wound.

“Thanks for the reminder, but really, I’ll be okay. I can order takeout and have groceries delivered. The stairs will take me a few minutes, but I can manage.” I unfasten my seatbelt and open the door. “I’ve got this, Dad. Thanks again for the ride and I’ll call you if I need anything.” Grabbing my bags from the back seat, I face my door, feeling as if there’s nothing but an abyss waiting for me on the other side.

It turns out, stairs, even in a walkable cast, are a pain in the fucking ass. Luckily, I won’t have to deal with them again until my next physical therapy appointment on Monday. Staring at the empty apartment before me, I laugh at myself and my sad existence. It’s just me and this empty space for the weekend. I’ve only stopped here a few times in the last three weeks, either with my parents or with Grace. But this is the first time I’ve been inside. They’ve always been the ones to run upstairs and grab the things I’ve needed.

Some things look familiar. Some don’t.

The fridge is empty, but clean and the pantry is bare. I’ll definitely need to figure that out, though I’m sure Mom will be here tomorrow with bags full of food for me.

My stomach twists in knots as I walk through my apartment. Even though I should feel at home, I feel like a foreigner invading someone else’s homeland. Nothing is familiar. Nothing is mine. A blurred haziness descends upon me as I make progress through the living room. There are a few pictures hanging on the walls, some on side tables and shelves. The one of me and Ian from what I assume is our academy graduation strikes a familiar chord. There are some of me and my parents, and again, those fall into place. Not the events, but at least the faces. The feeling of belonging and being loved.

It’s a surreal sensation, walking through your own home, not recognizing everything in front of you.

Figuring a hot shower will help me clear my head, I walk down to the bathroom. When I pull back the curtain, my chest tightens at what’s before me.

On the shelf, next to my body wash are items that I assume belonged to Grace once. Flipping open the top, I inhale the sweet vanilla scent of her shampoo and I’m immediately transported back to her apartment. When she’d sit next to me on the couch, or walk past me in a breeze, her scent was everywhere. I longed to be able to bury my nose in her hair, pull her into my arms and nuzzle against her neck. But that would have been cruel. To make her think I remembered her when I couldn’t.

Pushing down those feelings, I gather her things from the shower put them on the ledge of the sink. After wrapping up my cast, I shower quickly. Turning the water to near-scalding, I welcome the physical pain. That’s something I can manage. Right now, the mental shit is just too much to handle.

In an almost robot-like state, I shut off the water, step out from behind the curtain, wrap a towel around my waist, and unwrap my cast. When I step into my room, I take a deep breath. The hot water strengthened my resolve a little.

I’m alive.

And whether I remember my old life or not, I’m here today.

Except when I open a dresser drawer, instead of seeing my own clothes, I find Grace’s. Pulling out a T-shirt, I hold it up to my nose, smelling her sweet scent. No matter how goddamn hard I try to move on, she’s here with me, reminding me of who she used to be to me.

“No,” I assure myself, strengthening my convictions once again. She can and should do so much better than me.

After finding my clothes, I slide on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Digging into my closet, I find an empty box. With each item of Grace’s that I drop into the box, my heart empties a little more. After twenty minutes of scouring my apartment, I have a box filled with the things she left here, but the effect she had on my life stays with me. I can’t put those in the box.

Her song will stay with me forever, lulling me to sleep each and every night.

Sitting on the edge of my bed, staring down into the box, the realization hits me like a Mac truck. I might not remember her from before the accident, but every time I close my eyes, I see Grace. Thoughts of her from the last three weeks, from when she sang to me while I was in my coma, from rebuilding my new life with her as a main part of it, all come into a blurry focus.

Fragmented thoughts scatter my brain. Could loving Grace now be enough to make up for not remembering how I loved her before? Doesn’t she deserve more than that? Do I?

Looking over at the clock on my nightstand, I think about her and what she’s doing right now. I know her schedule. I know her life. Whether I remember who she used to be, I know her now.

She’s on her way home from work and in about ten minutes, she’ll be walking through her door, only to be greeted by an empty apartment, just like me.

That’s when the self-loathing kicks in. I’ve done nothing but feed her breadcrumbs of hope in the last three weeks. Relying on her for help. Needing her to take care of me. Allowing her to love me when I wasn’t sure if I could ever repay it.

Flopping back on the pillow, I fold my hands behind my head. As I stare blankly at the ceiling, I try to calm my frantic brain, but it’s just not working. Grace is everywhere. She’s in my head and heart.

She’s in my memories and my past. It’s just a matter of unlocking them.

But right now, the very cold reality is that all I have left of her is in a box at the side of my bed. Needing some distance from her things, in the empty hope that it will distance me from her, I move the box to the top of the stairs. When I open the front closet, I see her hoodie in there. Cursing it, I tear it from the hanger.

I can’t escape her.

I don’t want to.

But I should.

She’s better for it.

Rage fills my gut.

I can’t figure any of this shit out. The only thing I can grab a firm hold of is how broken I am.

Determined to box up everything she left behind, I turn my apartment upside down. Collecting everything that once belonged to her—books, movies, clothes, stupid little love notes taped to the inside of my study materials—I move through my apartment in a blind rampage. Things crash to the floor all around me and I simply don’t care. My sole focus is to erase everything about Grace from my life.