i was never quite the same after you. never as quick to laugh, never as carefree, never as naive and hopeful for what lay ahead, never as willing to share. i grew quieter. cold, mechanical. i shrank away from new people and prayed that they wouldn't hurt like you had. i curled into myself and asked why. why wasn't i good enough? why couldn't we have known each other sooner, when i might have been? why had i noticed you at all? what was it about you that, even after the veil of your illusion fell, still made my heart beat faster in your presence?

they say people change. people change people. you changed me in ways that not even eternities could undo. pieces of me that i didn't even know existed had buried themselves in your heart, nestled into the spaces between your fingers, pressed against the warmth of your skin. all the places i wanted to be, but couldn't.

they left the teeniest, tiniest gaps in me — but gaps that singed with pain every time i moved. gaps where my heart and my lungs and my soul should have been, but they all belonged to you. and so i gasped for air, clung to life, and slowly succumbed to you, and all i could think in my last breath was that at least i had died for you.