Breaking the Bully

Moore saved me, brought me here.

Now I need to save myself.

And the only way to do that is to move forward alone.

* * *

Five months later

It’s a quiet storm tonight.

One that trickles from the sky in slow motion, gently caressing blades of grass and creating a fine mist that rolls along the valley in front of my window.

I’m attending college now. Far from home in Wyoming.

When I arrived in town with nothing but a duffel bag, I found a listing for this small, detached garage that doubles as an apartment. An elderly woman seeking a student to rent the space. The price was reasonable because whoever took the apartment would be asked to help with yard work, some light landscaping. I had no experience with either, but I learned. It allowed me to be outdoors. And there is something therapeutic about putting life in the ground. Cleaning up the old leaves and preparing for more to grow. New beginnings.

The house overlooks a grove of trees and the valley beyond. Breathtaking and scenic and moody. But storms never fail to make me think of Moore.

The boy I left behind.

The boy it still hurts to breathe without.

My college classes are nothing like high school. They’re held in lecture halls, instead of cramped quarters. They smell of coffee and textbooks, rather than floral body wash and cafeteria food. But I still turn around, hoping to find him sitting behind me. It feels odd not to have him at my back, watching me in that intense way. Loving and wanting me so badly that he hates me for it.

The noise in my mind has settled.

And Moore remains.

As large and dominant and vital as the day I left town on a bus, my ticket purchased with the money he gave me. I attend classes during the day and work in a small, independent bookstore in the evenings. It’s so quiet that I’m able to study while working and even do assignments, the rows of books to keep me company. On the weekends, I do yard work and God, oh God, I think of him. To the point of distraction. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night unable to breathe because I don’t know where he is.

His body is supposed to be flush to mine.

His eyes are meant to hold my stare.

I need his voice like I need to live.

My love for Moore is a little gnarled. A little bent and unusual. It’s cloudy like the sky I adore so much. Volatile. But it’s mine. I miss it. I want and need and crave it. I can say that now with the confidence of someone who is walking her own path. I’ve created a life for myself. I’m free of pain and violence. I’m at peace.

I’m incomplete, though. My other half is missing and the more time that passes, the more I limp along. The more my heart feels like a hollowed out husk. This love isn’t going away. It’s growing heavier, like weight being added to my chest, making it harder and harder to breathe.

I turn from the window and look at my small apartment, raindrops on the window creating moving shadows over the bed, desk and dresser. I picture Moore walking in the door and wiping his boots off, shaking droplets out of his pitch-black hair, taking off his leather jacket. Smiling at me slowly, knowingly, well aware I’ve been waiting for him to come take me. Come drown in me.

He’s with me every second of the day and sometimes, like now, the only way to breathe with any degree of success is to go outside. So I put on the big, white wool sweater I found at a thrift shop and head for the door. At the last second, I reach my hand into the duffel bag hanging from the coat rack, my grip closing around the flare gun. I don’t know why I take it with me. Maybe because it’s the last thing Moore gave me and I need to have him close.

The mist dances around me a few minutes later when I meander through the valley, my toes sliding through wet grass. Trees sway gently to the tune of wind, dampness finding a home on my cheeks. I close my eyes and search my mind, seeking the peace I’ve found—and it’s there. But it’s disrupted by pain. Missing him. The feeling erupts down my fingertips and I raise the flare gun over my head, firing it into the foggy evening sky, the effort taking everything out of me.

For long moments, I hear my breath and nothing else.

I wish I could rip the flare back down out of the sky, because it felt like I was saying goodbye to him and that’s not what I want. That’s not what I want. But I have no way of reaching him. No phone number. I called his aunt at the school and she hasn’t seen him since the morning he sold his bike. He’s gone. Vanished. It’s not fair. I know he’s good for me now. I know I can’t be without him and that the need is permanent, but it’s too late to take back my choices. I’ve made this bed and I’ll be lying in it forever, without him.