Pain.

I felt it when I woke up. It stirred from deep within, its origin unclear but its harshness impossible to mistake. Disturbing thoughts filled my head. This pain is your fault. You did this. You made this happen. You trusted him.

I wrestled with my brain as I found consciousness, trying to understand. Trying to remember.

Then it came to me.

Joe.

Joe is leaving. He's leaving and he didn't tell you to wait.

He didn't say anything at all.

The morning after dinner with his parents was difficult. He tried to cover it up and act normal, but I could see the cracks underneath. He was distant. Different. Even Gracie struggled to meet my eye at the breakfast table, all of us smothered by the uncomfortable truth.

I was angry at him for inviting me. For making me go through all of this just to be abandoned. What did it matter if his parents liked me? I'd probably never see them again. He'd given me false hope. But part of me wanted to believe that it wasn't false. That he'd invited me here and introduced me to them because he did see some kind of future, even if he had no idea how it would work.

To hell with the logistics, I wanted to say. If you want it enough, we'll make it work.

But maybe he didn't want it enough and maybe that was the problem.

This was an easy way out. And it seemed he was choosing to take it.

Back in my room, I got up from my bed and walked into the bathroom to turn on the shower. Autopilot.

I put my hand in the warm water, feeling the spray as it hit my face. Numb.

I slipped out of my pyjamas and got in, letting the hot water pour over me. I stayed in the same position, staring like a statue at the shiny, white tiles and the round overhead lights. Frozen.

Once I'd found the strength to wash myself, I picked up my shampoo and popped open the lid, squeezing white liquid into my hands. I closed my eyes and rubbed it through my hair, lathering it into my scalp.

Everything was fine. I was coping. I was functioning. A little bit at a time...

Then the scent assaulted me.

The vanilla and coconut dragged me back to different days. Days when I had showered in bliss. Singing. Thinking of him. Remembering him all over me, knowing he'd be on my skin again soon. Now I had lost it. Lost him. Lost the version of me I was with him. Lost the way he made me feel. The way I saw myself. The things that were holding me together.

I got out in a daze, wrapped a towel around my body, and opened the window to air the steam from the room. The sun burst through the opening, drenching me in heat, demanding for me to feel happy. The birds yelled their happy songs. Children played somewhere nearby, their voices mingling with the sound of a mower and the smell of freshly cut grass.

But none of it reached me.

I went back to my bedroom and rummaged in the wardrobe, finding one of his shirts buried at the bottom. Thrown away in arrogance. Tossed aside like he would always be around. I pulled it over my head and lay on the bed, my wet hair matting into the pillow.

I breathed in the smell of him. Let it in. Let him come back to me. Me and him, face to face. Me and him, his hands on my body. Me and him, my fingertips on his, my head on his shoulder.

I mourned everything we were and could have been.

The day on the boat, the waves rocking as we lay together, tracing the outline of each other's faces. The day by the river. Driving in his car and singing. Long phone calls in the evening. Listening to albums separately but at the same time on the nights we couldn't be together. Him at the piano, his fingers dancing on the keys, his hands plucking the strings of his guitar while I lay stretched on his bed reading Andre Aciman on clean, white sheets. The song he made up about a cold cup of tea, just to make me laugh. The two of us in the water, my legs around his waist, my hair stuck to my neck, my face bare, every part of me displayed for him. Every part belonging with him.

A perfect thing was in the palm of my hands and I'd lost my grip.

Soon there would be nothing. Just like it never happened at all.

The radio silence since the morning at the house had killed me a minute at a time. There was a moment when emotion took hold and pride gave in to despair. I'd phoned him in the middle of the night, tears wetting my pillow, hoping to connect with him through the pain, believing we could fix things. We could talk. The phone rang out. No one answered. Nothing fixed. Nothing saved.

I woke up in the morning expecting a message and was greeted with emptiness.

He didn't care. He didn't care at all.

I'd used my one chance to make contact. I couldn't reach out again. I couldn't damage my pride any further.

He'd trapped me and left me with nowhere to go.

And I hated him for it but missed him and wanted him and needed him all at once.

If only I could stop it. If only I could believe that none of it was real.

I pulled on a pair of pyjama bottoms and went downstairs, my hair in knots, my face red from the shower.

Mum was on the sofa, eyes half-open, her legs tucked beneath her as she watched the television without expression. She'd been working late, probably fallen asleep. As a rule, I tried not to bother her. I tried to keep things to myself. She'd been different since Dad left. Quicker to snap. But I needed soothing. I needed someone to tell me everything was going to be alright. I needed a mother.

"Mum..."

She turned her head towards me, her eyes still on the TV.

"Can I talk to you?"

"Is it important, darling?"

I paused. Sucked in my breath.

"It is."

She waited. Said nothing.

"Okay..." I said, sitting next to her. "It's about Joe."

She flicked the TV off, turning to me in expectant silence.

I spoke to the blank screen, unable to look her in the eye.

"He's... leaving."

Saying it made it more real. I wrestled with my emotions, my breathing hot and fast. I was spilling over, losing control. Something was opening up, something I'd kept locked away for a long time. I couldn't stop it. I could only let it come.

"Leaving?" Mum repeated. "Leaving to go where?"

"He's going to live abroad with his parents. For a year."

She looked at me, her face tight and her eyes empty. Ghostly. She was looking at things I couldn't see. Lost for a moment in her own grief. Haunted.

"I see."

Do you?

"It's... I guess it means we can't see each other anymore."

"Well..." she thought for a few seconds. "That is a shame."

I pulled on the bottom of his shirt, picking at a loose thread. I tried to keep my rage down. Tried to keep it neat and tucked away, the way I knew the world liked it. But it was surging up, resisting, its power growing from years of neglect.

"You know what? Forget it," I said, jumping up, my eyes full of tears. I wasn't going to get any help from her. I wasn't going to get anything.

"Billie," she said, standing up with me. I stopped. There was emotion in her face and in her voice that I hadn't heard for a long time.

I waited.

"I'm sorry."

Her words echoed through the empty room, hitting me in waves. I hadn't heard her say them in so long. This wasn't just about Joe any more.

"Don't let it make you bitter," she said, her voice strained. "Don't let it stop you opening your heart. Trust me. You're lucky for what you've felt with him, even if it doesn't feel like it now."

"It hurts..."

It was all I could say. I was presenting her with a cut, asking for her to put a plaster on it. To wipe away my tears. To make it better.

She smiled at me, the years falling away.

"I know. It will hurt. It will hurt like Hell. But in time you'll come to see it's better to have the pain and the joy than neither. It's better to have known him and been broken by it than to never have met him at all."

And then she turned away, slumping back down into the sofa, picking up the control, her face returning to its hollow state.